I am very grateful to Senator Bernassola and the Fondazione Alcide de Gasperi for their kind invitation to me to speak, on behalf of the Maltese people, at this inaugural session. In fact, His Holiness the Pope has twice addressed brief but significant words to the Maltese people with regard to Europe which it is now my privilege to bring to your attention.

The first message centres on that which the Maltese people have in common with all other European believers and in its regard I will only highlight our understanding of it. The second centres rather on a peculiarity of the Maltese situation and I will begin with it.

On the 9^th May last year, the Pope at the airport spoke his farewell words to the people of Malta, the last stage of his Jubilee Pilgrimage in the footsteps of St Paul. His Holiness said: "Malta is at the centre of the Mediterranean. You therefore have a unique vocation to be builders of bridges between the peoples of the Mediterranean basin, between Africa and Europe."

Here Pope John Paul was harping on the key motif of St Paul – the recognition of the human dignity of "the other" as a criterion of the genuineness of one’s own Christian identity. Europe can be faithful to its true self, the Pope implied, not by purging itself of its outside connections in order to attain some kind of fictitious purity, but rather by engaging in serious dialogue and exchange with those who appear to be positioned on the other side of the divide. In this context, Pope John Paul spoke of Malta’s location in what he called, in quotes, ‘the geography of salvation.’ He was recalling, at the end of his visit, some of the first words he had pronounced on his arrival at the same airport: "Marked by its position in Europe and in the Mediterranean, Malta is heir to a singularly rich tradition, the heart of which is the humanism of the Gospel…. This is the wisdom and insight which Malta can offer to the new historical era that is slowly but surely emerging."

For those of us who clearly recalled the Pontiff’s words on his previous visit ten years before, the phrase "new historical era" evoked first of all Europe. The Pontiff, after alluding to Malta’ fidelity in the past, had gone on to say: "In our own days, as Europe prepares to enter a new period of its history, a period filled with fresh hopes and challenges, Malta is called to contribute to the spiritual unity of the Old Continent by offering her treasures of Christian faith and values. Europe needs Malta’s faithful witness too."

That small particle at the end – "too", that is "also" – indicates that the demand being made of Malta here is like that made to all other faithful Europeans. Hence our attention was led to focus on the question: what is it exactly to which we were being asked to contribute. The Pope’s phrase was: the "spiritual unity" of Europe.

In the context of the pluralist Europe we now live in, what can this "spiritual unity" be? I think it emerged clearly enough from the rest of the Pope’s words to us that it was constituted by adherence to the paradoxical concept of the human person as both an individual and a species being. This concept was clearly manifested in Jesus Christ and it remained at the roots even of the secular humanism of the Enlightenment.

Indeed even self-declared anti-humanists can hardly expunge it from their thoughts; it can only at most be relegated to the position of a necessary point of reference for their negations. This concept of the human being as both ego and socius emerges as the central core of the Biblical narrative of the beginning, dramatic evolution and eschatological destiny of humankind.

This narrative, is a necessary backcloth for the understanding of European history and of the persistence of European identity, although the Narrative must be allowed according to its own rationale, to be the object of conflicting interpretations, of assent or dissent, of belief or doubt. Without such a shared background as a framework for dialogue, if there were only incommensurable perspectives and unrelated value preferences, then clearly no European identity or unity would be possible.

D.O.I.  -  22.02.2002