Europe's Idea of Freedom
The 56th Christian Europe Day of the Pan-European Union Germany, organised in cooperation with the Bavarian State Chancellery and the European Institute for Political, Economic and Social Issues on 16/17 October 2021 in Andechs Monastery in Upper Bavaria, focused on the topic of freedom.
The President of the Pan-European Union Germany, CSU European politician Bernd Posselt, quoted the founder of Pan-Europe, Richard Count Coudenhove-Kalergi, who called for resistance against National Socialism immediately before the outbreak of the Second World War and said: ‘Europe is not just a continent, but an idea, and that idea is freedom.’
The essence of the European idea is responsible freedom. On Bavaria's sacred mountain, we trace its foundations, look at personalities who have dedicated or even sacrificed their lives to it and seek ways out of the threats to freedom that jeopardise our future.
Theologian Veit Neumann from Regensburg, editor-in-chief of ‘Academia’ and deputy professor of pastoral theology at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, gave an introductory lecture on the topic of ‘Freedom and God’, laying the Christian foundations of the concept of freedom.
Johannes Modesto, postulator for beatification proceedings of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, impressed the audience with an overall view of the theologian Romano Guardini and the ‘White Rose’ resistance group, whose thinking was strongly influenced by him.
The religious philosopher Beate Beckmann-Zöller described the work of the central European among the three patron saints of Europe appointed by Pope John Paul II, the Silesian Edith Stein, who was murdered in Auschwitz.
Political scientist Blanka Mouralová from the Prague Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes spoke about Hannah Arendt and her famous theory of totalitarianism.
The media and business lawyer Dirk H. Voß, International Vice President of the Pan-European Union, chaired the concluding panel ‘Freedom and courage - motors for a Europe worth living in’.
- Programme (DE) (PDF)
- Press release (DE) (PDF)