"Reawaken Europe's Christian Soul," Paul VI Tells Bishops in Rome Conference. Last month, in an unusually critical reference to the Protestant Reformation, Pope Paul VI said the 16th-century revolt against the papacy and the resultant religious wars had hampered efforts toward European unity. "The Reformation - it is a historical fact- has contributed to a division," the pope observed in an address before a gathering of 80 Roman Catholic bishops, cardinals, and prelates in Rome. After reviewing Europe's tortuous past, its divisions and wars, he told those in his audience that it was their "mission as bishops in Europe" to "reawaken Europe's Christian soul, where its unity is rooted." It was the Catholic faith "that made Europe" in the past, the Pontiff stressed. In discovering this "secret of its identity" the Continent could then perform the "providential service to which God is still calling it."
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