German President's speech on Christian Europe
This is how we must imagine the state of the world in those days when the relics of Liborius were transferred here from Le Mans to Paderborn. "This world lived in fear," wrote the historian, Duby: in fear of hunger, of marauding armies and bands and of ruthless rulers - basically, of every new day.
In those days, it was a comfort to people if they could believe that at least their relationship to the supernatural was intact, to the fate-determining powers of heaven, to God. Since God was thought of as a distant liege lord, it was important to have powerful and effective intercessors.
These intercessors, these mediators between the unredeemed earthly existence and the eternal, so infinitely far away, were seen in the saints. They too, like the poor souls of the present time, had lived in this vale of tears of the world but were now particularly close to God through their godly lives or through their martyrdom and could thus mediate between the faithful and the Creator. The saints were, as it were, lobbyists in the antechamber of the heavenly powers.
We can hardly form a sufficient picture of the power of this idea. Moreover, that is why we can hardly estimate how infinitely significant it was to have the earthly, bodily remains of such saints very close by, that is in the form of relics.
Relics were one of the most precious things a community, a monastery, a city or a country could possess. A Church without relics was practically unthinkable. That is why they were as necessary as they were coveted; they were objects of friendly exchange, of trade, occasionally also important booty in military campaigns. The more important the saints were, the more powerful the effect of their relics was imagined to be.
And so, in the Ninth Century, the transfer of relics of St Liborius from Le Mans to Paderborn was an event of truly outstanding significance. It was about strengthening the faith in the Eastern territories of the still unconsolidated Empire. Today one would say: a typical mixture of political, religious and popular motives. At that time, such gifts not only strengthened the faith but also consolidated existing rule. The fact that this resulted in one of the oldest friendships between cities in the world shows how important and momentous this delivery was - at a time, incidentally, when the terms Germany and France, as we understand them today, were still completely unknown.
So we look back to the origins of the Libori festival, which is attended by hundreds of thousands of visitors every year - and remember how the free, peaceful and prosperous Europe in which we are fortunate enough to live today grew out of a poor world that was mostly characterised by hunger and hardship and violence.
This Europe is largely based on Christian - and for that very reason also on Jewish - foundations. It is based on the belief that we ultimately live in a good creation that serves humanity. It is based on the belief that this creation has been handed over to us as faithful hands to make the best of it for all. It is based on the belief that mercy, solidarity, charity are not signs of weakness but of great moral strength. It is based on the belief that each individual is responsible for his or her actions and for his or her omissions in his or her conscience and before his or her Creator.
This conviction unites us over more than a thousand years with the people who still saw with their own eyes the arrival of the bones of St Liborius from Le Mans here in Paderborn. (The President is speaking at the 500th Anniversary)
We know: There has never been a straight line from basic Christian convictions to actual action. Again and again, there have been terrible aberrations and crimes and perversions of these good and wholesome origins. The Crusades, the persecutions of heretics and witches, the wars, even in the name of religion, the suppression of dissenting opinions, attitudes and ways of life, the oppression of women, the slave trade and the murder of European Jews are all testimonies to shame and betrayal.
Moreover, that is why European history always requires a re-consideration of Europe's good spiritual roots and of its humanistic foundations. Often enough - for example in the Enlightenment and in the various social movements up to the present day - the roots and the justifications of human rights originally laid down in Christianity had to be asserted against the official representatives of Christianity. Time and again, the Sermon on the Mount or the Parable of the Good Samaritan had to be recalled against the Church herself.
If we are facing a great new challenge today, if we speak of a war being waged against the often so-called "Western" values in view of the criminal war being waged by Russia against Ukraine, then we must be clear about one thing: Values are not marked by one of four points of the compass. Values are neither Eastern nor Western. Values are determined by proven convictions, by the experience that through them a good common life is possible for as many as possible, that through them the weak are protected and the chances of all for a fulfilled life are strengthened - and also by the experience of how terrible it is for all when these values are disregarded.
Russia's war against Ukraine violates everything that we considered fundamental for the co-existence of people on this continent only years ago, both in the West and in the East. It is bringing suffering to millions in Ukraine, tens of thousands have become victims of brutal armed violence, cities have been destroyed, millions have had to leave their homes and having been forced to flee abroad are in fear for those who have stayed behind.
Russia is not only questioning borders and it is not only occupying territories of an independent, sovereign neighbouring state and even denying the statehood of Ukraine. At the same time, Putin is destroying a European security architecture that worked for many generations after the experience of two bloody World Wars in the last century, and which, with the Helsinki Final Act fifty years ago, created hope for lasting peace in Europe.
I fear we are returning to a time we thought we had left behind: a mutual closure between East and West. The younger ones may think the return of the Cold War is no particular catastrophe; the older ones still know about the fragility and danger of the state of affairs - especially for the people of Europe.
However, during these days there is more at stake: the war Putin is waging against Ukraine is also a war against the unity of Europe. We must not allow ourselves to be divided, we must not allow the great work of a united Europe, which we have begun so promisingly, to be destroyed. This war is not just about the territory of Ukraine but it is also about the common foundation of our values and our peaceful order in a double sense.
We will only take a clear stance on this and be clear about our own commitment if we are very clear about what defines us and holds us together. About the values that we recognise as supporting and have experienced as enduring for a free, just and humane coexistence. Moreover, are we prepared to defend these values and to stand up for their validity and to accept sensitive disadvantages when following them?
Are we ready for this? This is the question we all face - today and in the days, weeks and months ahead. Perhaps it will help us in the decisions we all have to make or have to support if we remember what a long way we have had to go in our part of Europe since the days of the transfer of the bones of St Liborius here to Paderborn. Georges Duby wrote about that time: "This world lived in fear". This world had found something that bit by bit, over the centuries, could overcome this fear or at least make it smaller. We should not take a back seat to this, but together seek and find what can transform this fear, which we feel again and again today, into strength and power.
Europe's strength, Europe's community of values, Europe's happiness and Europe's future depend to a large extent on the partnership, indeed the friendship between Germany and France.
Who would have thought that possible, especially in the past two centuries? Who would have thought it possible, for example, in 1806, when Napoleon rode into Berlin after the Battle of Jena and Auerstedt or in 1870/71, when the German Empire wanted to constitute itself through a war against France or in 1914/18, when hundreds of thousands of soldiers bled to death before Verdun and elsewhere or in 1940 or 1945?
It was two devout Christians, two Catholics, General Charles de Gaulle and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who at a Mass in Reims Cathedral, the old coronation site of the French kings, reminded themselves and their compatriots of their ultimately indestructible common roots and finally symbolically ended the so-called hereditary enmity between Germany and France - that enmity which, on a historical scale, if we think of the thousand-year-old relationship between Le Mans and Paderborn, was rather short. In this context, we remember Charles de Gaulle's speech to the German youth - in German! -which he delivered almost exactly sixty years ago.
There are probably few places in the centre of Germany where the relationship between France and Germany and its importance for Europe is as vividly remembered as here in Paderborn and where the old relationship has been renewed again and again.
Today I am thinking, by way of example, of a priest from the archdiocese of Paderborn, Franz Stock, who studied theology in Paris. As a German military chaplain in France, he then sacrificially cared for French prisoners of war and himself supported hundreds of Resistance fighters sentenced to execution. When he himself was a prisoner of war after the surrender, he ran a large seminary among prisoners near Chartres. Abbé Stock, as he was known there, is still held in high honour in France today; as early as 1949, a memorial service was held for him in the Invalides Cathedral - the first time ever for a German. Even the square in front of the memorial to the French resistance against the German occupation on Mont Valérien is named after him. The then Nuncio in France who buried the chaplain, who died at an early age, in 1948, Angelo Roncalli, later Pope John XXIII, said of him: "Abbé Stock, that's not a name, it's a programme."
It was and it is as always: where much is destroyed and everything lies in ruins, where much can no longer be taken for granted, it is individuals who take up the good work again and continue it and open up a better future for many, for all of us.
Whether it is Abbé Stock; whether it is so many who then got an understanding of the importance of France and Germany for Europe in the Franco-German Youth Office; whether it is members of the Franco-German St. Liborius Fraternity, here in Paderborn and in Le Mans; whether it is historians, such as Johannes Willms, who has just passed away, who brought us closer to our western neighbouring country, for example through biographies of Napoleon or Charles de Gaulle; whether it is so many who read French literature, listen to French chansons, love French films: All of them have played and continue to play a part in keeping peace and friendship between France and Germany alive and in ensuring that this friendship continues to contribute to building a united Europe.
Europe, as we experience again and again here in Paderborn at the Libori Festival, is our rich past. Europe must also be our future dedicated to the common good.
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