Written in late 2004, Ratzinger raises serious questions about the issues facing Europe amidst the new European Union and forming of a European Constitution. Some of the main issues he raises include: How did Europe originate and what are its boundaries? Who has the right to call himself European and be admitted into the new Eurpoe? What about the spiritual roots of Europe and the moral foundation she is founded on? Ratzinger sees the lack of focus on these fundamental questions in the forming of a new Europe as a very serious dilemma for the furture of Europe, and the world.
European Social Policy, Today and Tomorrow discusses the future of the European Community focusing on nine member-countries. The book discusses that if the members of the European Community were to survive and prosper, they should develop a viable social policy focusing on the problems and priorities of the common man. The text also explains the need for a clearer definition of the relative role of the member-states. The book describes the process leading to European integration and social policy, and compares the achievements that have resulted in terms of full, better employment together with improvement of living and working conditions. The text gives special attention to the employment situation and the inception of the European Social Fund, with an emphasis on the freedom of workers to move around the Community in search of better opportunities for themselves. A chapter also emphasizes the role of community participation and industrial democracy toward a meaningful process of shared decision-making. The book argues that the different social systems can be harmonized through the establishment of the First European Social Budget, which tracks date of expenditures covering health, sickness, unemployment, and occupation diseases. The selection then evaluates problems of poverty, health, environment, as well as inflation and social justice. The text evaluates as well the institutions that are established to address the problems. The book then proposes several changes toward a more responsive, evolving European Community. Diplomats, government policymakers, migrant workers, foreign career service officers, and historians will find this book thought-provoking and helpful.
Well known for his important scholarly contributions to dogmatic theology and biblical commentary, Joseph Ratzinger has also written penetrating observations of our times. This book includes some of his keen insights about the social and political challenges confronting modern Western societies. Writing most of these chapters just before his election as pope, Ratzinger sought to remind Europeans, who at the time were crafting a new constitution, that the civilizational project we call “the West” is a cultural achievement with a history. Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome were the three foundation stones upon which Western civilization was built, he wrote. Their invaluable contributions form the basis for the Western understanding of human dignity and human rights, which spread from Europe to the United States and beyond. This book also includes, as an epilogue, a new essay by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI on clerical sex abuse, which traces the moral disorder that preys upon the young to the collapse of faith both inside and outside the Church. “The witness of Christian lives nobly lived is the beginning of reconversion (or, in many cases, conversion) of the West—and that return to the truths taught by the God of the Bible is essential if the great Western civilizational project is not to crumble because of its current, postmodern incoherence. Joseph Ratzinger understood that danger long before many others. It would be well to attend to his prescription.” —George Weigel, Distinguished Senior Fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center, from the Foreword
