Damn the EU

Krakow, Dec. 26, 2007 (CWNews.com) - A statement chiding the European Union for failing to acknowledge God will be read in all the parishes of the Krakow, Poland, archdiocese this coming Sunday, the Dziennik newspaper reports.

Father Jan Maciej Dyduch, the rector of Poland's Pontifical Theological Academy, is the author of the statement, which expresses "regret that the European Union's Lisbon Treaty does not contain an invocation of God."

"It is as if Europe -- represented by an influential group of politicians, bureaucrats, and journalists -- fears Jesus and His Gospel," the criticism continues. The Church statement concludes that "Europe risks becoming a spiritual desert."

The drive to include an explicit mention of God, and of the Christian foundation of European culture, was one of the last major public campaigns undertaken by the late Pope John Paul II who was Archbishop of Krakow from 1964 until he was elected
Pontiff in 1978.