Catholic World News has reported that Pope Francis has called upon MEPs to return to the original vision of a united EU that Father Bernard Ardura, the president of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, paid tribute to the Schuman Declaration on its 65th anniversary.
Robert Schuman was a Catholic who served as the foreign minister of France in 1950. He pictured a supranational European economic community, a multinational union where power is negotiated and delegated by member states.
It is thought that he had hoped it would reconciled Europe following the Second World War and eventually developed into the EU.
Father Bernard Ardura wrote: "Five years after the armistice of 1945, reaching out to the enemy of yesterday may have seemed a senseless utopia for some, or a crazy dream for others.
"Sixty years later, despite the weaknesses and shortcomings of the Union, reconciliation is an accomplished fact and a guarantee of peace and concord for future generations."
