by Iben Thranholm, First Things
A little over a year ago, I arrived in Budapest for a ten-month stay as a senior fellow at one of Hungary’s academic institutions. My task was to teach students about the relationship between Christianity, Europe, and the European Union. The central question on the syllabus, one the Orbán government clearly wanted the next generation to wrestle with, was this: “Is Christianity the foundation of the European Union?”
I welcomed the assignment. It was rewarding to explore with the students how the European Union was originally shaped by a Christian vision. I spoke of the founding fathers, Robert Schuman, Konrad Adenauer, and Alcide De Gasperi—all devout Catholics who saw a united Europe as a recovery of Christian civilization. I reminded them of Jacques Delors’s call for “a soul for Europe,” which he too rooted in the continent’s Christian heritage. As a Dane from one of the world’s most secular societies, I had come to Hungary expecting a kind of Christian Canaan: a place where a government unapologetically championed the faith, defended Christian values in the E.U., and stood as the last real bastion against aggressive secularization. Here, I imagined, the streets of Budapest would overflow with vibrant Christian life.
They did not.