On Eve of E.U. Anniversary, Pope Warns of Bloc’s Fragility
By JAMES KANTER and GAIA PIANIGIANIMARCH 24, 2017
ROME — On the eve of celebrations commemorating the 60th anniversary of treaties
that led to the creation of the European Union, Pope Francis warned the bloc’s leaders on Friday that while their countries may be "inseparably linked," the project could still fail.
Francis said that Today’s prosperity seems to have clipped the continent’s wings and lowered its gaze.
Twenty-seven European Union leaders — representing all of the bloc’s members except Britain, which is preparing
to leave the union — met with Francis in an ornate, marbled hall in Vatican City on Friday evening.
" he said, "it experiences a regression and, in the long run, risks dying." In an interview this year with the Spanish newspaper El País, Francis invoked the example of 1930s Germany.
that When a body loses its sense of direction and is no longer able to look ahead,
That gathering was ahead of formal celebrations on Saturday of the Treaty of Rome, which was signed March 25, 1957, by six nations
and established the European Economic Community, a major precursor to the European Union.
