Today Americans still readily embrace both religious faith and patriotism, a striking paradox in a land where Church and State are deliberately separated. We have much to learn from the people of the United States. Their search for a better life and their optimism are linked with their religious faith. From their first day at school, American children learn to salute the flag and declare their Americanness. They say: \u201cGod bless America,\u201d\u009d and then happily add: \u201cI\u2019m a Baptist, or a Jew, a Catholic or a Muslim.\u201d\u009d To them, it seems, being a good Catholic, a good Jew, a good Baptist or a good Muslim fits in perfectly with being a good American. Americans always look with hopeful eyes to the future. Problems can be solved, people can be saved and God will continue to bless his people. Since the days of the Pilgrim Fathers, Americans have seen themselves as a chosen people, called to share in God\u2019s work in history.<\/p>\n
The contrast with Europe is striking. In the first place, Europeans have misgivings about patriotism because of the extreme nationalism that blighted Europe throughout the past century. The European Union is a conscious attempt to transcend national loyalties and to foster a new \u201cEuropean\u201d\u009d identity based on common values. But Europe\u2019s slow and painful birth has involved an attempt to brush under the carpet the continent\u2019s Christian heritage. Whether it is motivated by overt hostility to religion or by a desire to find a lowest common denominator, such denial of the obvious is unhealthy and dishonest.<\/p>\n
Europe\u2019s mood is pessimistic. This is surprising, as the institutions that were created postwar to keep the peace in Europe \u201d\u201c the EU itself, Nato, and the European Convention on Human Rights under the Council of Europe \u201d\u201c have been remarkably successful in this perennially troubled continent. Part of the problem may be that the role of religion is not usually acknowledged. The American example suggests that seeing Christianity as part of the European vision, rather than ignoring it, could only enhance the construction of a common European civilisation.<\/p>\n