It is the first time that a non-European Pope will visit European institutions. He will deliver two speeches, one in front of the European Parliament and the other one to the Council of Europe. A short program, as it may have been very much recommended by Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament, who studied at a Jesuit School but is also a self-proclaimed atheist.

Schulz feels a strong connection to the Pope with regards to poverty and the peripheries, and he hopes that Francis will speak precisely about these issues. In Schulz’s view, Pope Francis should talk toEuropean institutions about the need to welcome immigrants, and even to recall his visit to the small Italian Island of Lampedusa, the first trip of his pontificate. And Schulz – as well as radical secularists– is ok with the fact that the papal trip does not even include a pastoral meeting with the Catholic members of the European Parliament: this kind of program paves the way to reinforcing the notion that the Pope is a just a head of state, like any other.

Yet, Pope Francis may surprise everyone. The issues at stake are very important, and they deal not with European identity. They mostly deal with the human being, the way he is envisioned. They deal with the God’s project of creation.

This is where European issues and the Synod on the family follow the same path. Speaking about the family means speaking of God’s project of creation. It means addressing the complementarity between men and women, of their opening to life, of the way this opening to life becomes the fundamental fabric to build a just society. From Gospel to family to social commitment: this path cannot be broken.

But there have been attempts to break this path. At the Synod, African Bishops strongly denounced that in their countries, which are in need of financial aid, this aid is entwined with the requests for changes in the legislation. These changes are meant to introduce the ideology of gender, to break away from the idea of the natural family. In practice, if an African country needs a new irrigation system, itis obliged to introduce gay marriage in its legislation. Or to pass a law to consent to in- vitro fertilization. Or to any other law of the so-called Reproductive Health Rights, an euphemism used at the United Nations to promote the notion that abortion is a “right”.

It is not just an African problem. In 2012, the Report on the Social Doctrine of the Church in the World issued by the Van Thuan Observatory pointed out that the new colonization did not deal with the conquer and exploitation of States, but rather with that of the human being. The report also stressed that laws that potentially destroyed family and countered natural law have been used as a leverage to clear the way for a cultural colonization. Curiously, the country chosen as a case study was Pope Francis’ beloved Argentina.

Pope Francis proved to be very concsious of the issue. On November 15, meeting the Italian Association of Catholic Doctors, stigmatized abortion and euthanasia and stressed that “playing with life is a sin against God creator.”

Pope Francis may then be particularly conscious of the risks posed by a rootless Europe. Risks that must be faced in a Europe where religious freedom vacillates, as underscored by the most recent World Report on Religious Freedom issued by the Pontifical Foundation Aid for the Church in Need.

The most striking data of the report is that there are many European countries were the degree of lack of religious freedom is considered “of concern”, among these the highly civilized United Kingdom, Germany, France and the Netherlands. Scrolling the report, one finds out that in these very countries a Christian may be discriminated against on account of positions taken regarding family – from the choice of a Catholic school to the French protest against the institutionalization of gay marriage – and that Churches are attacked by radical secularists because they dare speak about these topics.

When he presented the report in Rome, Martin Kugler, a member of the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe, provided a gloomy picture of the situation, and underscored that «menaces to religious freedom are above all supported by groups of radical feminists, homosexual lobbies and radical laicists.»

Radical feminists – Kugler explained – think that non-restrictive laws on abortion and contraception, without any possibility of objection of conscience, are needed to pursue a real equality between man and woman; homosexuals want to show that homosexuality is absolutely normal, and aim to silence Christians and Muslims about their positionson homosexuality; radical secularists aim at excluding the religious point of view from public life, since in their view religious groups should not take any public stances.

This is intolerance masked as freedom, with a conception of progress that puts aside every notion of natural law. The basis for this masked intolerance are not new. They can be traced back to the change in the United Nations vocabulary, which the Holy See has denounced increasingly. The international organizations speak about Right to Reproductive Health, right to a dignified death, the right to choose a dignified life. All of these words hide one sole word – and notion: eugenics.

Eugenics is a word nobody wants to mention, since it brings to mind Adolf Hitler’s aberrations. However, eugenics is practiced every time a life is not considered dignified enough to be lived.

It is worth noting an interview that Carl Djerassi, the father of the abortifacient pill, recently granted to the British newspaper “The Telegraph”. In it, Djerassi clearly disclosed the pill’s endgame: that sex would become just a recreational activity. So much so that, starting in 2050, sperm and embryos would be routinely frozen in order to be used for in-vitro fertilization whenever it is considered convenient.

This is not just the practical negation of God’s project. It is also the negation of the human person, since in paternity and maternity lies the fundamental reason of his existence. Only paternity and maternity can give life to Paul VI’s civilization of love.

The recently beatified Paul VI, in drafting the encyclical Humanae Vitae, was keenly aware of the menace of designs which render the human person merely a sort of mechanical robot, with no sentiments, unable to give love a sense.

Such designs, it now seems, are becoming a reality in a rootless and 2012 Nobel Laureate for Peace Europe Union. Meeting European Bishops, Pope Francis has said he had not understood the reason why Europe did not include a mention to its Christian roots in the European Constitution. Those roots were not just an aspect of its identity. They signifiedcare for the human person – just think about the network of hospitals – that has now, it seems, disappeared.

Certainly, not everything is bad. In 2011, a lawsuit promoted by Greenpeace brought the European Court to rule that there cannot be profits from the destruction of human embryos, and that any procedure which implies the destruction of a human embryo cannot be patented. According to the ruling, however, it is possible to patent procedures that involve human embryos and are at the same time useful for that same embryo – i.e. analysis or care.

But this is just part of the narrative. Always in 2011, the Strasbourg European Court of Human Rights labeled as “not coherent” the Italian law on the in-vitro fertilization, which forbade the pre-implant diagnosis of embryos.

On the one hand, a judgment that defended the embryo. On the other, a judgment that would open the doors to eugenics. Two cases that reveal how the rootless Europe has become mostly an unlimited bureaucracy. A concept of the human personis lacking at the core, as are values shared in common. Ideas and ideologies are carried forward through the so-called ‘soft law’, since whenever an appeal reaches the European Court, the final judgment becomes part of the common jurisprudence for all of Europe.

The Europe outlined by the Maastricht Treaty is very much technical and just barely human. As technical and barely human is sex without procreation; and as technical and barely human is a desktop project for a human person, discarding all the human beings that are not healthy or that simply do not meet our aspirations.

When Pope Francis speaks about the prevalence of a «throw-away culture», he has in mind the way that society treats the poor and other marginalized people – anyone who is discarded by society. But he is also probably referring to those discarded by transhumanism in the world. This is the European risk, now. This is the reason why a discussion about the family, the beauty of the natural family formed by man and woman and open to procreation, not only mirrors God’s design on men: It can serve as the greatest antidote to the human being without humanity that bureaucracies and international institutions want to impose.

Under Pope Francis, diplomacy is not seemingly enjoying a simple life. Pope Francis has made of prayer his main diplomatic tool. On his flight back from South Korea, the Pope reiterated that the prayer for the peace in Middle East held in the Vatican gardens – which he promoted – had not taken place invain, despite the conflict broke in Gaza a little after this event. In South Korea, in addition to the appeal for the reconciliation between the two Koreas, he called on Asian countries that do not have diplomatic ties with the Holy See yet, to «start a dialogue among brothers,» since «Christian do not come as conquerors.»

The strategy with Asian countries seems to be that of a diplomacy of martyrs. Id est, not to just seek a diplomatic dialogue, but to show the beauty of Christianism through shining examples, to evagelize «through attraction.» The rest – the Pope thinks – will come after. For this reason, the cause for the beatification of the first North Korean martyrs has been unlocked. And there will soon be new martyrs from Laos, another of the seven Asian countries with no diplomatic ties with the Holy See.

Despite this strategy, at one point Pope Francis had to turn to a more interventionist diplomatic strategy. Always during the press conference in the place, he backed an intervention in Iraq to stop the aggressor. «I said: stop, not bomb,» he pointed out. And also he mentioned United Nations, reiterating the principle the Holy See has always followed in humanitarian issues. This principle states that there is the need for an international intervening force. States should not perpetuate a war, and should come together to stop them. This is the eternal debate on the just war, which led to the notion of humanitarian intervention. But the humanitarian intervention had to be done under the auspices of a multilateral organization, as the United Nations are. Is the United Nations an organization strong enough to support States? Is this gathering of nations an effective tool to help the common good? Does it have the necessary authority? 

This is where Pius XII becomes current again. True, the Holy See has always promoted the commitment and the importance of the United Nations. But it has also always more insistently spoken about a needed reform of United Nations. In the midst of the dramatic humanitarian situation in Iraq, the United Nations seems to be among the bigger losers.

In the face of this humanitarian situation, diplomacy of truth has become the only possible way to build a diplomatic support to action. This is something that Pius XII had already foreste  in his Christmas radio message broadcasted in 1954.

That message is very much worth reading again, in its entirety. Among the Pius XII’s Christmas radio messages, only those the Pope delivered during the Second World War are now remembered. Those messages represent in the end a true social encyclical, and are the basis of the John XXIII encyclical Pacem in Terris and of the Second Vatican Council’s document dealing with the social teaching of the Church. No one remember of the 1954 message, delivered when the world was divided in blocks and peace was kept only because the rivals feared their mutual destruction. «The cold peace – Pope Pacelli wrote – is only a temporary calm, conditioned by a sense of fear that is subject to change.»

In that message, Pius XII condemend the notion of war as a political tool, subjected to the error of those who rule, as an «absurd and inmoral notion of war.» A notion that prevale and made the Pope’s effort to avoid war in 1939 futile. “Nothing is lost with peace. Everything can be lost with war” is a famous Pius XII’s maxim, which Pope Francis intentionally quoted often.

Pius XII went further. «Every effort or pacifist propaganda coming from those who profess no  faith in God is always very dubious and uncapable of mitigating or eliminating the anxious sense of fear.»

It is the faith in God that gives rise to the rational choice of not pursuing war, and to pursue living as brothers instead. Pius XII already foresaw the catastrophe in the making because of the merging of practical atheism, free market and consumerism. He wrote: «It is illusiory to believe that peace can be left  to the care of free market alone,» and «it would not be different in the future, if the blind faith which gives economics an imaginary mystic force is carried on.»

According to Pope Pacelli, «it is necessary to understand that economic relations among nations will be tools for peace  as much as they will obey the norms of natural law, inspire love, care for the other and be sources of help.»

Pius XII was also suspicious of a union of European nations merely based on economic purposes, because the union would be frail, without a «big and effective» ideal that would «make it strong in the defence and operation for a common program of civilization.” »

Coexisistence is not enough either, Pius XII admonished, since «to justify» the quest for peace, there must be a «coexistence in truth». For this purpose, «skeptical and cynical people» are not fit to be the basis of human unity, since their materialism reduces «even the most beautiful truths to physical reaction» and since «they speak of mere ideologies.»

«Those who do not acknowledge absolute truths nor accept moral obligations in social life» are not fit, too, since out of this «descructive and unreasonable critic» have come to prepare an atmosphere «favorable to dictatorship and oppression.»

This radiomessage is very rich in offering topics for further reflection. It is from this starting point that the Church carried forward its presence in the world during the Cold War and beyond. Diplomatic effort run side by side with cultural engagement, catechesis and education, to build up a  coexistence in truth.

Yet, cynics, skeptics, those who do not acknowledge absolute truth have won the day. Europe has lost its identity, integral human development has been overshadowed, alliances among States are above all economic in nature and biased toward the benefits of biggest and wealthiest nations. The Holy See has always strongly spoke out about these problems, criticizing the formation of the “G groups” (G7, G8, G20), backing instead multilateral and inclusive multilateral policies, in order to include the weakest States.

It was not enough. International scenario is completely fragmented. One can only powerlessly look at the crescent moon of conflicts broke from the heart of Europe to Africa, since there are not strong international actors on the horizon.

The Catholic Church can still exercise  moral influence, to help States to pursue common good. It has not the power of deterrence, as noted by the Papal nuncio to Ukraine Thomas Gullickson. But it can express its moral strenght based on truth, which is what can really unite States.

This is the reason why Pope Francis should continue his efforts for peace. His word in the plane reiterated once again the position of the Church, whose international diplomacy cares for people, not for issues. Perhaps, Pope Francis should be guided by and beatify Pius XII for his prophetic gift. A prophecy that John XXIII carried forward, halting the Cuban missile crisis. Paul VI followed the same path, with his wonderful speeches on peace and disarmament. John Paul II emphasized it, pushing for a diplomacy based on the relation with people and not with States, one of the true reasons that made the Soviet Union fall. And Benedict XVI went further in this path, with his diplomacy of truth that was part of a reform project intended to give a structure (juridical, theological) to the big ideals of the Church.

Now, Pope Francis is called to take these responsibilities forward. He must be conscious that the destiny of humanity can depend on the strength of his stances.