The new Europe: No Catholics need apply

		The Catholic  Difference  George Weigel

On Oct. 28, heads of government of 25 European states gathered in a hall on Rome's Capitoline Hill to sign a constitutional treaty for the newly-expanded European Union [E.U.].

For years, Europe's secularists, and European governments led by France and Belgium, fiercely resisted any mention of Christianity's contributions to European civilization in the new constitution's preamble - a fight they won in June.

So there were more than a few ironies in the fire when the constitutional treaty was signed beneath an enormous statue of Pope Innocent X in a room that also featured a colossal bust of the Emperor Constantine. Europeans can try to airbrush Christianity from their collective memory; it just can't be done.

Excluding Christians

What they can do, evidently, is bar orthodox Christians from senior governmental posts in the European Union. That is the unhappy conclusion to be drawn from the recent Buttiglione affair.

Rocco Buttiglione, whom I am privileged to call a friend, is a distinguished philosopher, successful governmental official, devoted husband and father -and a serious, intellectually sophisticated Catholic. His only vice, to my knowledge, is a penchant for what may be the foulest-smelling cigars in all creation. Still, Rocco's cigars have not been an impediment to his public service. But that is precisely what his Catholicism has become.

Challenge convictions

Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, the former prime minister of Portugal and incoming president of the European Commission [E.C.], the European Union's executive branch, invited Buttiglione to become commissioner of justice on the new commission. At what we would call his confirmation hearings, Buttiglione was keel-hauled by the justice committee of the European parliament.

One parliamentarian informed Buttiglione that Rocco's conviction that homosexual relations were morally disordered was "in direct contradiction of European law." Buttiglione reminded his inquisitor of Kant's distinction between morality and law and made clear his conviction that many things considered immoral should not be criminalized.

Another parliamentarian asked what Buttiglione intended to do as justice minister to be "pro-active" in promoting "protection of homosexuals." Buttiglione replied that he was against discrimination against anyone, but the civil rights of homosexuals "should be defended on the same basis as the rights of all other European citizens," not through some "pro-active" agenda.

During the proceeding, Buttiglione defended the classic understanding of marriage; this was subsequently twisted by European and American ideologues into an alleged conviction that women "belong in the home." They were evidently unaware of, or ignored, that Rocco's wife is a distinguished psychotherapist whose couch, so to speak, is not in their home.

Buttiglione's nomination as justice minister was rejected by one vote in the committee, whose role is advisory. When incoming E.C. president Durao Barroso presented his entire slate to the European Parliament (which had to vote "yea" or "nay" on the slate as a whole), gridlock ensued.

Two days after the signing of the European constitutional treaty, Rocco Buttiglione withdrew his nomination so that the process of forming the new European Commission could be completed.

The 'New Europe'

What kind of polity is it that doesn't want a man like Rocco Buttiglione looking after the administration of justice and the protection of human rights?

A polity in which too many people believe that the God of the Bible is the enemy of human freedom. In which too many people believe that freedom is license. In which "anti-discrimination" has become the excuse for active discrimination against Catholics and others whose moral convictions ill-fit the relativist-secularist opinion mainstream.

A polity like the new Europe. The demographers tell us that Europe is dying, physically. The Buttiglione affair tells us that Europe is now on life-support, morally and culturally.

George Weigel is a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.