TH E 7 Septem ber 1974 The international Catholic weekly 15p

TABLET The madding crowd’s ignoble strife: Terence Morris Tribute to De Gasp •eri: Lrom our Rome correspondent The real presence c if Christ: Donald Nicholl Preachin g and teaching: Lionel Swain Introducing structuralism: David Lodge

Europe growing together The exceptionally cordial relationship established between the West German Chancellor and the new French President is very welcome. Taken together with the friendly gesture and substantial loan of the former to bankrupt Italy, with all that it implies for European solidarity, it shows that the idea of a European Community is by no means dead. A human institution, it will grow, as humans do, unpredictably, but grow nevertheless.

Teilhard had said that the real question was not what you are looking at but where you are looking from. In the past we have been looking at the world from only one point of view with the light coming only from us and everything else in shadow, but in the future, the President said, there will be many more lights coming from many different places: from Brazil, from South-East Asia, maybe from Malaysia, the Philippines or Indonesia, so we would see things in a different way, in a different light.

It is regrettable that a shadow should have passed over American relations with Europe and France, in particular through a remark made by President Giscard d’Estaing in a speech last week to the effect that President Ford seemed to pay insufficient public attention to Europe. Clearly, the new President was bound to deal first with the grave economic and social problems on his own doorstep; how his administration copes with thpse will indeed be of the greatest importance to Europe. But to leave no doubt about his country’s solidarity with Europe, the White House revealed that two hours after President Ford’s assumption of the supreme office, he had called all the NATO ambassadors together to assure them that he was fully committed to the alliance. It was also stated that, while substantial reductions in public expenditure would be made, none would impair America’s defensive capacity, acting on her own behalf or that of her European allies. More recently, in an interview with Mr James Reston of The New Y o rk Times, the French President has clarified many points about relations with the United States. Their natures were different, their problems of defence were different, so that they could have good relationships but they could not be related in the sense of a common structure of decision.

It was refreshing to find the French President referring to Père Teilhard de Chardin, who was born 15 kilometres from Monsieur Giscard’s chateau at Chanonat. He recalled that

It should not be overlooked that France by rotation assumes the presidency of the European Community for the next four months. This no doubt lay behind the President’s call for a summit to discuss the ways in which political union may be achieved. The word unity in this connection has a pleasing sound in Germany, but less so in this country. It should not be taken too literally. In the interview referred to above President Giscard was pressed to define his concept of a European Community. He replied that he had always believed it was rather futile to discuss concepts. We are not living in a world of constitutions now but in a world of events. As soon as governments were really working closely together, really taking decisions together, the question of structure, he said, would not be an important one.

It is precisely an apparent lack of any wish for togetherness on the part of the present British government, and what is seen as a dithering evasiveness on the subject, that is causing increasing impatience amongst our European friends. It is vitally important that doubts surrounding British membership of, and cooperation with the European Community, should be set at rest as soon as possible after the general election. True, the Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer last week stressed the absolute necessity of international cooperation in dealing with our grave financial and economic problems but