Faith in Europe? : The Cardinal's Lectures

What has happened to Europe? How has it become, in Bob Geldof's words, 'a Milton Keynes continent of Pooterish ambition' in which blind smugness allows its leaders to give cows 157 times more in subsidies than what the EU gives to each African?

Beneath the suburban complacency which has dulled Europe there is a restlessness; a searching; a longing for the faith which underpins the European ideal.

As Pope John Paul II said, Europe must learn again how to "be itself", to "relive its roots". The Archbishop of Westminster invited leading statespeople and spiritual leaders to take up that challenge. In a compelling series of essays Bob Geldof, Mary McAleese, Chris Patten, Timothy Radcliffe, Jean Vanier and Cormac Murphy-O'Connor explore ways in which the continent can fulfill its vocation to become a place of belonging, inspiration, vitality and hope, at the service of the world and humanity.