EUROPE UNDER CHRIST

Introduction

At the heart of the philosophy of the EEC and the EU is the concept of ever closer unity and integration of structures, flowing from shared sovereignty. Tonight we will look at how this process of integration is progressing in relation to the fundamental mechanism of economic policy in the union: and the development first of controls in exchange rates among member states, through to the adoption of a single currency used in most member states, initially called the 'ecu' but now known as the 'euro.' It will not surprise you that I argue that Catholics have a duty to be enthusiastic advocates of Britain joining the euro zone as soon as possible. When we looked at the issue of Europe two years ago the euro was up and running but was not yet a visible 'paper' currency: since January 2002 that has all changed. At about the time of that original lecture Caroline and I went by train to Austria, all in a day. In order to buy coffee and food we needed Belgian francs, Deutsche marks and Austrian schillings - what you needed even changed while staying on the same train. All that is history now.

I am aware that in a course on the Christian faith to deal in this way with one of the most divisive issues in political life is liable to lead to many accusations of bad faith, but I am prepared to take the risk. It is certainly contentious: in the eighteen months that I have been writing the front page of our parish newsletter since Fr Ian left, I had more negative comment about the piece I wrote in January 2002 about the euro than anything else I have ever written: this might prompt the disturbing thought that nothing matters more to people than...money. My hope is that when the referendum campaign happens, our bishops and other Christian leaders will offer clear guidance to Catholics and other Christians that we should vote in favour of adopting the euro and getting rid of the pound, but my fear that this may not happen is not going to deter me from looking at the issue in light of our faith.

The premise of this course, as of all Christian moral teaching, is that if we do not enable the insights of our religious faith to inform all our attitudes, and the whole of our lives, then that faith isn't really worth very much - so it is beyond belief that Christian faith should have nothing to say about this. Of course, I accept that in terms of the economic judgements which surround the issue, Christians who are conversant with economics will reach as many different conclusions as any other group of such people; my own references to these issues will be limited and entirely derived from economists who support my overall argument, since I have virtually no background in economics.

What I am more concerned about is the principle of the issue in the light of teachings of the Catholic Church and the history of Christianity in Europe. That is what this whole programme is about - how we live out the key teachings of our community about solidarity and subsidiarity in our relationships with the other countries in this continent.

Health warning

Something which should, of course, make us hesitate about examining this question is the repeated reminders of our pastors, and indeed the Catholic founding fathers of modern Europe, that the EU shouldn't primarily be about money or economics. We saw last week how it has taken a long time for Europe to move towards integration in spheres other than the purely economic: are we not falling into this trap again by focussing on currency? Well, we will see how the integration at the heart of the European vision really does need stability and common economic management to succeed - and that, as so often in the past, the original vision of what is meant by a single currency has been stymied and weakened by national governments reluctant to give up power.

But we should be careful, because for the Christian money is at best only means to an end. Jesus tells us to use money, 'tainted as it is' to win friends; the Pope in his Lent message this year quotes the famous words from 1 Timothy (6:10):

'The love of money is the root of all evils and there are some, who, pursuing it, have wandered away from the faith and so given their souls any number of fatal wounds.'

Turning any sort of currency into an idol, exaggerating its importance, is a dangerous temptation for both sides in this debate, but I think it is far greater temptation for those fighting to keep the pound, and one they have largely failed to resist. The campaign to keep the pound does seem to me to be guilty of idolatry, with its ridiculous badges - the currency seems to be an end in itself. We always need to be looking at what we want to achieve for the peoples of Europe in relation to the question of a currency - it must only be a means to an end.

It seems to me that many of our partners in Europe have readily grasped that a currency is simply a means to an end, and have not mourned the disappearance of the franc, lire or mark. They have very little antiquity in themselves - the franc only dates from the French Revolution. Look at Ireland, whose struggle for national self-determination is so well-known. No-one mourns the punt, as far as I am aware; it has never been an 'independent' currency, since in the 1970s it simply switched from being tied to the pound to membership of the European Monetary System. Do Irish people love their country any the less? In two weeks' time we will look at the further expansion of the EU in the next few years: these countries will not have the option of not being in the euro zone, so out will go the Polish zloty, the Maltese lira, the Estonian kroon, the Slovenian tolar and the rest. Most of these nations have only recently regained self-determination or independence: are they going to miss their new currencies?

Why the single currency happened and why it makes sense

This is not the place for a lengthy history of currency fluctuation and policies in the 20th century, but a brief sketch is necessary. Following the international economic turmoil of the 1920s and 1930s, towards the end of the Second World War, there was a widespread feeling that something had to be done to prevent the world from returning to the chaos which had become the seed bed of fascism; as Will Hutton puts it in The World We're In:

'...World trade and finance were henceforth to be conducted within a framework of universal rules that favoured economic openness and internationally agreed responses to individual economies' difficulties.' (p.185)

This was the origin of the agreement signed at Bretton Woods in New Hampshire: a system was established for pegging currencies to the dollar and through that to the price of gold. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank were set up at the same time to advance transitional loans and special aid to support third world development. There is no doubt that these arrangements, coupled with the gradual lowering of tariffs through GATT, played a crucial role in helping post-war economic recovery. At this stage, American policy, under the influence of John Maynard Keynes, was committed to collaboration with other countries and proper controls on the market.

The problem with the system was that the dollar had to hold its value against gold, and that the United States became the world's 'banker of last resort'. By the early 1970s it was not sustainable, and following additional pressures (for example, the Vietnam War) between 1971 and 1974 President Nixon broke the dollar's fixed linkage with gold and presided over the dismemberment of the Bretton Woods system. I mention all this because it provides the key background for moves in Europe in the 1970s to form a co-ordinated monetary policy. In these years, the mark had to revalue, the franc had to devalue - and this sort of instability threatened to undermine the whole progress towards integration in the EEC. In 1970 the Werner committee's recommendations were accepted by the EEC (this was before Britain and Ireland joined) that the only way to protect the Common Market from competitive devaluations was to set up a European economic and monetary union. The plans could not develop because Germany and France were unable to agree about the right way to link EEC currencies together in relation to the dollar - the collapse of the Werner plan led to stagnation in the pace of European integration, alongside high unemployment, high inflation and low growth, coupled with external pressures such as the sharp rise in oil prices after the 1973 Yom Kippur war.

It was in this atmosphere that the European Monetary System (EMS) was eventually established in the late 1970s. Much of the credit of it should go to the late Lord Jenkins, then President of the European Commission, who realised that it would give a new impetus to the community, and to the leaders of France and Germany, Giscard d'Estaign and Schmidt. This EMS went on to become EMU and the euro. The key realisation was that in the free-for-all after Bretton Woods, and as capital controls between countries were gradually being lifted, it was the only way to establish sovereignty over the foreign exchange markets. As Hutton puts it: 'In a world where neither floating nor fixed exchange rates offered sovereignty, the only course was to establish a single European currency.' (p.327) Jenkins describes in his memoirs how from the very beginning Britain's leaders were suspicious of the enterprise, first Callaghan and then Thatcher. This did us no good, as Hutton says:

'In the early 1980s the unstoppable and crazy rise in the pound was the chief cause of the deep recession, and over the 1980s the Tory government tried a variety of ploys to stop the same thing happening again, finally joining the EMS in 1990 at too high a rate in a desperate last effort to achieve some currency stability. The speculation that forced sterling out of the EMS in 1992 was mountainous, reaching $20 billion on 'Black Wednesday' alone...the gain in relative value and consequent loss of competitiveness, measured in real terms, is stunning...' (ibid.)

Modern economies face a complex dilemma: whether countries wish to fix their currency against a group of currencies (such as the old EMS) or an anchor one like the dollar prior to the 1970s, with interest rates that support this rate, or whether they want to fix interest rates for domestic economic or political purposes - either way, they are now subject to the caprice of the international financial markets because of the vast volumes of currency which flow freely in the markets:

'Currencies can be valued high or low in relation to their underlying value for years, with episodic bouts of frenzy that typically culminate in a final sell-off or burst of enthusiasm that defines the end of the trend. The one thing we have learned about markets is that they are not stable. That in turn forces adjustment of the interest rate to relieve the pressure at some stage in the process - so that again the country has controlled neither its interest rates nor its exchange rate... The beauty of the single currency is that it solves these dilemmas at a stroke. It allows member countries to choose the interest rate they want for the economic area as a whole and stick to it.' (p.329)

Moreover, the interest rate is not fixed according to the needs of the 'anchor' currency (as it has often been with both the dollar and the Deutsche Mark under previous system) but according to the needs of the area as a whole. That is why member countries have to have broadly synchronised in terms of inflation and growth rates - the basis of the 'economic tests' which are said to be about to determine whether our present Government will recommend that the UK join the euro. There are problems, of course. Most enthusiasts for the euro recognised long ago that a single currency would need to be accompanied by an integrated financial and fiscal system, involving harmonised tax regime.

This was certainly part of the background of the development of the single market from the 1980s, and part of the vision of the European Commission President Jacques Delors, the bête noir of British tabloid culture in the 1980s and of Margaret Thatcher. Like the founding fathers of post-war Europe, Delors was a committed Catholic, influenced from an early age by Catholic social teaching - he was a member of the Catholic workers' group, the JOC (Jeunesse Ouvrière Chrétienne, Young Christian Workers), from the age of 13. Even in his youth in rural France going to Mass was largely a female activity - Jacques was one of the few men in the village who went. When he and his family later lived in Paris he remained committed to the church, and his wife Marie was involved in welfare work in the parish, visiting the elderly and teaching immigrants to read and write in French. Delors was a socialist, and a committed Catholic in a traditionally anti-clerical party - his Catholicism got him the nickname of le grenouille de bénitier (lit. 'the frog from the font', "Holy Joe") His simple lifestyle was striking -he once asked on French TV whether it was necessary for each family to have three cars or four TVs. In spite of his faith (which he once described as an 'invisible thread') he did not really think that the Church should get involved in politics, and there is some evidence that he did not get on very well with the Pope during the latter's visit to the European Parliament in 1985. But his vision and pushing for integration, including monetary union, is what matters, and we need to see this vision in the light of what we have seen of Catholic teaching: but (as with Monnet and Schuman in the 1950s) much of what he wanted was stymied by national governments - an integrated tax system is still far off. As we shall see, in terms of Catholic teaching it is only if monetary union is accompanied by financial and fiscal system which promote the common good and the interests of the poor that it will serve the wider vision.

To sum up this section: the euro offers stability, shelter from turbulence. This stability supports long-term investment in the whole of Europe, and is the only practical response to the way the world economy has developed. The pressure group Britain in Europe on their website (www.britainineurope.org.uk) has shown how being out of the euro zone is affecting jobs in this country, because the pound is overvalued against the euro - and most of our trading is with the euro zone. As it is, the pound, as a medium size currency, now has to float against three giants: the dollar, the euro and the yen.

What are the responses to those who say Britain should not join? The euro-sceptic arguments take many forms, and draws people from both left and right (like the pro-euro movement). One argument they share is the restraint which being in the zone would put on Britain's economic autonomy. The Growth and Stability Pact which was adopted after the Maastricht treaty demands low interest and inflation rates around a very low average - and economic policy should be tightly controlled after entry. Countries should not run a budget deficit greater than 3% of GDP, except in certain circumstances. In addition to this lack of freedom, critics claim that the European Central Bank is not accountable to democratic structures. To respond it has to be pointed out that increasingly few nations in the world have the economic independence which so many crave: there has to be some restraint on sovereignty, and better that it should be within an overall community than at the whim of the markets, or indeed of American policy. Moreover flaws in the way the bank works do not negate the policy: Hutton and other apologists for the euro have specific proposals, in line with Delors' original plan (and Catholic teaching) which would meet many of the criticisms. So much of the opposition is not so much economic as romantic, at gut level, and in spite of decimalisation, many people associate the pound with Britain's imperial past, with a largely imaginary world role. What is more, Hutton's view is that the Treasury critics are the failed men of yesterday who have been wrong so often in the past about Britain in Europe:

'What the British sceptics are doing is throwing up reasons for not joining because at root they do not believe that they are European, that they share common values with other Europeans and that they can benefit from making common cause with other Europeans. Thus the core position of even ex-Treasury knights: the euro will lead to a superstate and therefore it is bad. It is the same reluctance and misdiagnosis that have afflicted Britain from the time when the Treaty of Rome was being drafted.' (pp.42-3)

Catholic Social teaching and currency stability

I have looked briefly at the history and economics; what I want to concentrate on now is the theology. This establishes the case that the stability sought through the euro reflects Christian teaching. In the history of developed Catholic social teaching since Leo XIII, the popes and bishops have increasingly warned against the harm done by unregulated financial profiteering. In the midst of the Depression in 1931 Pope Pius XI wrote this in Quadragesimo Anno:

'...a dictatorship, being most forcibly exercised by those who, since they hold the money and completely control it, control credit also and rule the lending of money. Hence they regulate the flow...of the lifeblood whereby the entire economic system lives, and have so firmly in their grasp the soul, as it were, of economic life that no one can breathe against their will'. (105-7)

This critique of bankers really only makes sense if it also encompasses those who through speculation in exchange markets make enormous sums of money and deprive countries of stability, in respect of the competitiveness of industry and agriculture and people's spending power. The principle of solidarity demands, as in the whole of our teaching, that the system be properly regulated and policed - a 'free' unfettered market is not acceptable. This was reiterated forcefully later in the 1930s in two statements by the Catholic bishops in the United States.

From the time of Pope Bd John XXIII (1958-63) papal teaching about economic life increasingly looked at relationships between countries and the international monetary system. In his great encyclical about peace, Pacem in Terris, John recognises that the relationships between states need better international structures of authority:

'..The shape and structure of political life in the modern world, and the influence exercised by public authority in all nations of the world are unequal to the task of promoting the common good of all peoples.' (135)

The world of 1963, reeling from the Cuban missile crisis, need better international regulation. For Pope Paul VI, building on this teaching and on the world view of the Second Vatican Council, especially in the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes (December 1965). In his ground-breaking encyclical in 1967 on world development Populorum Progressio (a letter described at the time by the Wall Street Journal as 'souped-up Marxism') the Pope applies Catholic thinking to the need for international finance to support the poorest nations of the world. He called (paragraphs 51ff.) for the establishment of a World fund to relieve the poorest of the world, and for other forms of financial assistance to be given to poorer nations, either through gifts or low-interest loans. None of this would be possible without some common regulation and currency stability. By the time of the 1971 synod of bishops on justice in the world, the Church had become more critical of the financial and monetary system as such - in his letter for the synod, Octagesima Adveniens (43), Pope Paul says that the monetary system has to be revised in the light of 'the prior call of international duty'

As in many other respects, Pope John Paul II has developed further this aspect of social teaching - the need for the international financial and monetary system to be governed by ethical norms in favour of the poor. As in other situations a 'jungle' is intolerable: the market needs to be regulated. Moves in various places for fixed exchange rates and linked or common currencies are part of what such regulation is about. In his first encyclical Redemptor Hominis (1979) he reflects on how disparity between rich and poor nations is getting worse and worse:

'The contrast...represents the gigantic development of the parable in the Bible of the rich banqueter and the poor man Lazarus. So widespread is the phenomenon that it brings into question the financial, monetary, production and commercial mechanisms that, resting on various political pressures, support the world economy. These are proving incapable either of remedying the unjust social situations inherited from the past or of dealing with the urgent challenges and ethical challenges of the present.'

This becomes even more explicit in the 1987 encyclical (written to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Paul VI's Populorum Progressio) which explores (as we saw last week) in the fullest way so far the concept of solidarity, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis. One of the Pope's recurrent themes is the link between personal sin and 'structures of sin' in the world, and he includes international power blocs marked by imperialism in this definition (36). Later on (43) he criticises forcefully aspects of the international economic system which damage 'the Lord's poor'. So he says:

'I wish to mention specifically: the reform of the international trade system, which is mortgaged to protectionism and increasing bilateralism; the reform of the world monetary and financial system, today recognised as inadequate... The world monetary and financial system is marked by an excessive fluctuation of exchange rates and interest rates, to the detriment of the balance of payments and the debt situation of the poorer countries.'

Moreover, he makes concrete proposals for co-operation 'in the framework of a solidarity which includes everyone, beginning with the most neglected.' (45) He thinks that the poorest nations themselves have a responsibility to work closely together, but it is clear that this way of operating reflects a general principle:

'...Nations of the same geographical area should establish forms of cooperation which will make them less dependent on more powerful producers; they should open their frontiers to the products of the area; they should examine how their products might complements one another; they should combine in order to set up those services which each one separately is incapable of providing; they should extend co-operation to the monetary and financial sector...
An essential condition for global solidarity is autonomy and free self-determination...but at the same time solidarity demands a readiness to accept the sacrifices necessary for the good of the whole world community.'

The first part of that quotation is a thumb-nail description of what has happened in Europe since the war, made by the Holy Father into a model for other, poorer regions; the second part is a succinct definition of the balance between autonomy and shared sovereignty demanded by the idea of solidarity. Why does the Pope endorse this way of acting for nations and encourage others to follow it? Because by and large it has worked, and because it is rooted in Christian teaching. How can any Catholic read these words of the Vicar of Christ and still be a 'euro-sceptic'?

These themes in Sollicitudo Rei Socialis are taken up in subsequent documents from various bishops' conferences. The priority is helping poor nations - and they suffer most, along with others, when there is currency instability and insecurity. It is this instability that the monetary union project in Europe has been designed to address, and we can see from these extracts from papal teaching why Catholics should support it wholeheartedly.

It is, of course, absolutely essential that the single currency should work in the interests of the poorer nations, both within the EU and the rest of the world.

The concept of order in natural law and the teachings of St Thomas Aquinas

There is a serious reason for this teaching. One of the foundations of Catholic moral teaching is the idea of natural law - the idea that simply from the created order and the use of reason, we can discern how God wants us to behave, without revelation or religious belief, so that some norms are binding in all times and places. In Catholic theology we do not operate in an unrestricted setting of freedom - the way God has created us reflects his will, and a sense of order and stability. Essentially setting up a single currency, and co-ordinating and integrating monetary policies among groups, is an intervention in the market with a view to another good - economic growth through stability. Currency speculation is about profiteeringand involves risking the common good in the interests of private profit - rather, according to the teachings of the most important theologian in the history of the Church, St Thomas Aquinas, economic life should be directed according to the common good of society and the cultivation of moral rights and virtues. The common idea that the individual profit motive is the driving force of economic activity is thus alien to Catholic thought. Drawing on this both Pope Leo XIII (in Rerum Novarum, 1891) and Pius XI (QA) held that the state has a positive duty to intervene in economic life to promote a life of virtue among its citizens. It is surely right to apply this approach to monetary and currency activity - the priority must be for transactions to reflect fairness and justice (which is why Aquinas condemned usury). It is because of this basic concept of order, and of the need for direction and regulation, that Catholic analysis of modern problems identifies currency speculation and instability as a major social ill and the root of many injustices.

The European bishops and the Euro

As you know there is a commission of Catholic bishops in Europe, COMECE, made up of representatives of the various bishops' conferences. It works closely with similar bodies for other churches, especially CEC, the Conference of European Churches. In early 1998 COMECE organised a special conference in Brussels entitled The Euro and Europe, bringing together bishops, Vatican officials and senior figures in the EU (this summary is based on that given in Briefing, 19.3.98). I want to refer to it in some detail because it shows the Church's vision with regard to the single currency and the ways in which our community has been working with those who have been setting it up. In 1998 the practical introduction of the euro, although it had been planned and timetabled, was still some way off.

The conference brought together 200 experts and 20 bishops from the 15 member states of the union, including the then President of the German Bundesbank, Dr Hans Tietmeyer, and the EU commissioner responsible for the single market, Mario Monti. One of the main contributors was Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, General Secretary of the Holy See's Pontifical Commission for Justice and Peace. Dr Tietmeyer in his speech made clear what we have seen already in this talk - that the single currency is not an end in itself. Although its historical originality has to be acknowledged, it is not a miracle cure for all Europe's economic ills - for example, unemployment; in addition there are also risks that public opinion might turn against it, or that countries might not be able to stay in the stability pact (this has not really happened so far). Monetary union is a major step in economic and political progress, and the stability which it will bring will bring advantages to everyone, including the whole world economy. He pointed out that, for all the delay we have looked at, currency integration is ahead of political union - the euro has advanced faster than Europe itself. As a result it was now necessary to balance things out by bringing further political integration to match the economic. Monetary union has become the motor force driving European integration.

Archbishop Martin took a rather different view on this last point: the motor was not the market, but the creativity, energy and work of people. The economy is at the service of the human person - it gives that service by functioning properly and in accordance with ethical criteria. An unstable currency, just as a lack of transparency, creative book-keeping, collusion and the suppression of information, damages people's lives - he referred to recent experiences in Asian economies. The Church values, therefore, the legitimate autonomy of the European Central Bank (ECB) and the need for a strong political commitment to ensure its success. However, he stressed that there must be, at every level, responsibility for the social consequences of decisions that are taken. In strong and weak countries, economic actors must internalise responsibility for the new 'currency community' that monetary union will create. Without this solidarity the short-term losers will become the long-term excluded. He described 'the social responsibility of the private sector in which it has become the driving force' as a major issue to which the Church would give more attention.

In other discussions at the conference Peter Sutherland, former director of GATT and of the WTO, and President of BP and Goldman Sachs International, said that 'the nobility of the European ideal is integral to European Monetary Union' which recalls what we have seen about the need to re-establish the high ideals at the base of so many common European institutions. The euro needed the right conditions to succeed - European integration continues to be an example and an aid to greater solidarity throughout the world. Commissioner Monti pointed out that monetary union would increase our sense of solidarity with one another but also how far we have to go: in 1998 the EU had an unemployment rate of 11%, of which 4% could be attributed to the harmful effects of taxation. What was needed was fiscal co-ordination - that is, common taxation policies, repeatedly resisted by successive British governments, as envisaged originally by Delors. The President of COMECE, Bishop Josef Homeyer, called for participants in the conference to continue the dialogue in his or her own country and to bring politicians and economists into ethical debate.

This conference, which was hardly reported here even in the religious press, illustrates the ways in which the vision of a single currency is rooted in Catholic teaching and practice.

Conclusion: Archbishop Nichols' homily in Frankfurt

I want to bring this talk to an end with sentiments drawn from an important homily preached by the Archbishop of Birmingham, the Most Revd Vincent Nichols, just over a year ago (the full text is in Briefing, 13.3.02). He was preaching in Frankfurt cathedral for the annual celebration of the first Holy Roman Emperor, Charlemagne, known as the Karlsamt. Birmingham is twinned with Frankfurt. The archbishop draws together Charlemagne's vision for a united Europe with the recent introduction, a few weeks before, of the euro. For Charlemagne, 'the state was a means of gaining the world for Christ, whose gospel could inspire and direct the state, at least in part.' The archbishop acknowledges that many might miss the Deutsche Mark and other currencies, but also pointed out that even in England he managed to acquire euro coins from all over the continent very early in the year. He went on:

'For many, of course, the new currency is both sign and instrument of the deeper unity of all the peoples of Europe. Such unity is a legitimate and worthy aspiration, especially in as much as it frees us all from the fear of conflict, enhances our mutual support and enables us to tackle the many human problems of today in a more efficient and concerted manner.
Monetary union in Europe, or at least in substantial parts of Europe, is not new. For many decades until 1930 the gold standard served as a common currency, and with silver coins such as the Mariathaler in widespread use. That coin was, of course, named after the Empress Maria Theresa. But common currencies, of course, have not been sufficient to protect Europe from disintegration and violence. So there is an historical context in which we view this moment of new monetary union, not in order to dampen enthusiasm but to maintain our sense of reality. So, too, our Christian perspective asks that we retain our critical senses. The unity of the European human family obviously depends on far more than monetary union and will involve us in far greater searching than has been necessary for this step, remarkable as it is.'

Archbishop Nichols goes on to link the quest for European unity with ecumenism, the search for unity among Christians. This is an important angle: in the aftermath of the last war, the two went hand in hand. The efforts of important Anglicans like Bishop George Bell of Chichester (the well-known critic of the allied bombing of German cities towards the end of the war) and the foundation of the Taize community, for example, showed that the parallel breaking down of barriers between nations which had been at war, and between churches, caught the imagination of post-war Europe, even of some people in Britain. Moreover, the two movements towards unity encounter some of the same problems.

'The Church is the sacrament of the world, the place in which the purposes of the God for all peoples are revealed and expressed. So the struggles of the one Church of Christ to find ways of overcoming historic and painful divisions are intimately connected with tasks facing Europe. The emergence of a more united Christian witness is properly understood as a sacrament of the greater unity of the whole human family. The search for Christian unity, then, is a service to the harmony and peace for which all people long.'

This makes sense in so many ways. The most important ways in which Christians from different churches are now able to co-operate - immeasurably more than at the end of the war - are in pursuit of God's law of justice for the poor, and the struggle for peace in the world, as we have seen very much in the last few months. Christian unity and European unity go hand in hand.

He points to the symbolism of the new euro coin, which expresses both unity and diversity in Europe: on the one side is a standard design, showing the whole continent, on the other different national symbols - for example, the tree of liberté (France), St Stephen's cathedral, Vienna (Austria), the harp (Ireland), the cathedral of Santiago de Compostella (Spain) and the head of Pope John Paul II (Vatican City state).

'The relationship between the individual country in Europe and the unity of Europe as a whole is a crucial and sensitive issue. Its resolution lies at the heart of the European project. Of course, the very notion of identity is complex not only for the individual but also for the nation. The basis of identity lies in a variety of factors: language, customs, laws, art and sciences, and, of course, religion. The wide variety of creative talents within a people forge these factors into an identity. And in a people's way of life that identity maintains continuity with the past and serves to fashion a future which is both faithful and innovative. While politicians must struggle to find ways to both promote and reconcile a plurality of identities within Europe, the gospel asks us to look closely at the cost of allowing our identity to be shaped by the saving message of Jesus...that invitation requires of us a willingness to change. Without change we shall continue simply to exist side-by-side, whether that co-existence is within the walls of one house, or within the boundaries of the present European Union.'

The unwillingness to contemplate change is one of the bleakest and most unattractive features of the anti-euro movement - it is stuck so firmly in the past.

The gospel reading the archbishop was preaching about is the call of the first disciples by Jesus. The call to follow him means that all the ways in which we look at how have to change are to be grounded in God:

'From God alone will we find the true perspectives by which to judge all things, knowing which is to be left behind as part of a temporary or even false identity, and which to be brought into the fashioning of a new and wider reality.'

It is, then, precisely the marginalising of religious faith that puts at risk the project of European unity. Those who believe that this unity will be achieved in purely secular terms are mistaken. For the capacity for religious belief lies at the heart of the human person, and without a response to that truth our societies are attempting to build a new future on false foundations. Little wonder that Pope John Paul II, in his most recent address to the diplomatic corps of the Holy See, and in reference to the work of refashioning a possible constitution for the European Union, said:

harmonisation of which Europe is legitimately proud strikes me as both an injustice and an error of perspective. This is something which must be corrected.'

Archbishop Nichols then stresses the need to respect other people's identities while affirming our own. While so much has been achieved in building a united Europe, we have seen in these bleak weeks how far we have to go to develop a shared European identity, and we well may have much further to go than we did a few months ago.

'Another way of putting this is to say that identities and cultures are truly human only when they demonstrate an openness to others. Now that is a real challenge to us all.'

This means we have to look at the darkness in our own history - the Karlsamt celebration in Frankfurt (26 January 2002) at which the archbishop preached was also the same day as Holocaust memorial day, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz in 1945 - 'the temptation to exclude others from our way of life, or simply from our considerations, does not go away.' Other things he says at the end of the homily have a bearing on future topics we will be considering on this programme.

What the Archbishop of Birmingham does is to root the enterprise of the single currency in the whole Catholic vision for European unity. As Catholics we have a serious duty, for the reasons I have outlined this evening, to support and sustain that vision, and work for this country to join the euro and abandon sterling.