a) Ever since the great St Benedict who has been designated patron of Europe, our continent has seen hundreds of religious institutes whose "Rise and Fall" are described in an eponymous study by my friend Raymond Hostie. Many of these institutes had a long life expectancy, others very short. Their diversity is huge, from the Carthusians to the military orders (the prototype of NATO), to the pontifices, (literally the "bridge-builders" whose role it was to facilitate the passage of pilgrims to Jerusalem and to Compostella), to orders dedicated to the ransoming of slaves.

But let us stick to the present situation. In preparation for the big Congress of the Major Superiors' associations of Europe, male and female, which took place at Olmütz in Moravia in 1993 in preparation for the Roman Synod on religious life, I was asked by the organisers to write a report on the situation. I am now going to summarise and complete it here.

Apart from Poland, Slovakia and Malta, the crisis in religious life is getting worse everywhere. Let us look at a few statistics. In 1976 there were more than 77,000 ordained religious and more than 38,000 lay brothers in Europe. According to the most recent edition of the church's annual statistics (published by Vatican City in 2004), the figures for 2002 show only 62,000 priests and 20,000 brothers. In France alone there is a decrease in priests from 8,086 to 3,220 between 1976 and 2002, and a drop in brothers from 5,841 to 3,220. Almost all the orders have been affected. In the case of my own order, the Society of Jesus, I notice that the four provinces of Ireland, England, the Low Countries and the Flemish part of Belgium which, in the years after the Second World War, used to have between 20 and 40 novices each per year, only had three last year in the joint noviciate in Birmingham. Spain with its 5 provinces had none at all in 2003-4. At the same time, throughout Europe, the average age of religious had risen steeply, while hundreds of houses and works had been closed down. There has never been such a falling off in the history of the Church, except during periods of persecution.

There are many reasons for this phenomenon. I have already mentioned the fall in the birth rate. No doubt there are other influential factors like life-long celibacy, the challenge of making a decision for life, when life now lasts much longer, the negative attitude towards the institutional Church and, definitely, an agnosticism which affects the whole cultural climate. I shall not go into them here. In any case, to meet such an evolution one would need a "mutation" in the sense that Pierre Teilhard de Chardin uses the word in his paleontological research.

b) There is another factor I could mention and which I call the crisis of quality. I've always felt that quality requires quantity. As soon as the number of religious in an institute falls below a certain level, there is the risk that the number of those capable of exercising spiritual, intellectual or administrative leadership may no longer be sufficient. Add to this phenomenon that of ageing and there is a real danger of provinces running out of steam, even whole institutes. I could name many provinces where the main problem is now that of finding superiors.

Nevertheless, solutions are available provided there is courage to take realistic decisions. I will mention a few which, in any case, you already know. There are institutes which have decided to join up provinces that had become too small, to close communities where the members were too old or inactive, to concentrate their forces on projects more in line with the charism of the founders. These measures, generally speaking, although born of necessity, show few signs of great creativity or prophetic spirit. There are even institutes who have chosen to die out with dignity by deciding to accept no more novices. I know too that there are international institutes who have appealed to their provinces in the southern hemisphere, where numbers are still healthy, forgetting the fact that transferring one culture into another can lead to new problems and serious crises.

This sketch of possible options could make us pessimistic. In all honesty, one must admit that there is a real danger of becoming discouraged. But we must not deny that sometimes life is stronger and impels us to new creativity, facing up to the risks involved. I shall give a few examples taken just from western Europe.

c) First of all there is the thrust to collaboration with lay people who want to become involved in the works of the institutes or even directly with the institutes themselves. Nobody has yet carried out a global evaluation of this attempt at renewal. In general there are many different levels of commitment. There are lay people who take on tasks traditionally carried out by the religious, in schools, hospitals, retreat houses etc. They do this not simply to plug the gaps, but because they want to benefit from the particular spirituality of the institutes. Then there are those lay people, not very numerous let it be said, who want to commit themselves to an institute by taking specific promises, for a determined length of time or for ever. They are sometimes regarded as "associate members". This constitutes a kind of reinvention of the oblates and third-orders of old. It is also a kind of return to what the Church experienced at the beginning: basic Christian communities in the midst of a pagan world who gather together believers who want to live their faith more deeply than the majority of the baptised. Looking at the rapid drop in numbers of parish clergy - a phenomenon which I describe, along with some colleagues in a book that, in English, appeared under the title Europe Without Priests? (SCM London, 1995), it looks as if soon the responsibility for primary pastoral care will rest on the shoulders of groups of lay people, aided by a few priests, secular or religious, by priests married or not, and - why not? - male or female. The most recent Katholikentag which took place at Ulm in Germany, asked specifically for this to happen. It goes without saying that this presupposes a certain courage on the part of the bishops and greater honesty on the part of Rome. But the religious have a new role to play in these resource groups of lay people, in virtue of their independence and their life in community. In any event it will call for a great deal of imagination.

Let me take an example from my own institute. In my province we have an impressive abbey - yes, the Jesuits have an ancient abbey - which has been a retreat house for a long time. Its staff consists of an elderly priest and three couples, two of the couples being former students of mine. To accommodate these couples, apartments had to be set up in the abbey. And this system works better than when there were only Jesuits there. Again, the financial management of our province has just been entrusted to a young banker who wanted to be linked spiritually with the Society of Jesus. There are missionary institutes who have similarly annexed doctors, engineers, even airline pilots. In my province also, and I cite it again since I know it very well, we have seven colleges. Long ago there were only Jesuits on staff, except for the gymnastic teacher; now there are only three Jesuits. In one college there is even a woman Head and this works well because there is a good management team which gives direction and inspiration to the whole. The lay people are no longer employees but partners.

Now, despite our awareness of the rapid acceleration of events, nobody can foresee where it will lead. Yet we must not forget that the first apostles had no idea where the infant Church was heading. In recent decades we have seen new "movements" growing up in Europe and attracting sometimes a remarkable number of followers. Will they soon take the place of our religious institutes? Nobody can tell. No institute is guaranteed eternal life. Which doesn't mean that we must give in to fatalism and carry out euthanasia on them. What is urgently needed, however, is that we do a radical re-think. The method we use to do that will differ according to the circumstances. Which means that I am not going to risk giving you suggestions. You must find the way for yourselves by tuning in above all to the few young people there are and to the serious dreams of the older people. We now come to the third panel of my talk, namely

If we are to have any understanding of the challenges which Europe poses to religious, we must be able to "read the signs of the times", as the Pastoral Constitution on the Church puts it, and be able to read them in a prophetic manner. In my experience, however, we all read these "signs" through our own, often very tinted spectacles. I am going to attempt to read them now, in however summary a manner. And since all your provinces are situated in Western Europe, I shall confine my remarks to that area. Let's go back for a moment to our surveys and now let us look at the responses to the specifically religious questions. Some unexpected facts will strike us regarding Europe as a whole, bearing in mind the wide differences between the member states of the European union. If we compare the results of 1981 with those of 2000, we see that faith in God remains stable at around 60%, faith in a personal God has gone up from 24% to 31%, and belief in heaven from 30% to 35%. And this increase applies also to the 18 to 29 year old age group. Although this still means that only a minority accepts the traditional teaching of the Churches and that Europe therefore scarcely appears very "Christian", this minority seems to be growing. At the same time, people's confidence in the Church is diminishing constantly. In Europe generally in 2000, 54% professed to have great or a degree of confidence in the Churches, with significant differences between the countries: still 45% in France, 41% in Spain, 39% in Germany and Austria, 34% in Great Britain, 30% in the Low Countries, 19% in Czech.

Looking at these statistics one might conclude with Jacques Delors, the great former president of the European Commission, that Christians are called to "imbue Europe with soul". This is what led him to create his "Cellule de Prospective in Brussels. Truly, Europe lacks hope, both human hope and Christian. Allow me to say what I mean by citing the newspaper La Croix which published a tribute by Jacques Delors to Pierre Bérégovoy, the former French prime minister who committed suicide. Delors was pointing beyond the Bérégovoy tragedy to "the veritable earthquake shaking our industrial societies undermined by the slippage of traditional values which are not at present being replaced by anything lasting or durable". At the end of his reflection, having raised the question of other dimensions of human destiny besides the political, economic and social, Delors, comes back to that "dark despair into which our societies have often been plunged". He contrasts this darkness with "the hope that lies at the heart of the Christian (…) and leads us to look beyond the sea's horizon, beyond our own very existence".

What are religious doing in the face of these challenges in Europe, and what could they do to open up a vista of hope? I will stick to a few examples. Since 1956 the Jesuits have opened in Strasbourg and later in Brussels centres of the organisation OCIPE (a Catholic centre for information and initiatives to do with European problems). Other centres followed in Warsaw and Budapest. Their goal is to promote a Christian vision for Europe across a variety of areas from social economics, bioethics and migration, to Islamic-Christian dialogue. And, at the same time, pastoral ministry to the 'Eurocrats' has been a priority. This ministry, which was confided to them by the cardinal of Malines-Brussels, includes pastoral care in the European schools, eucharistic celebrations, baptisms and marriages in the "Chapel of the Resurrection", specialised talks, to take place in this chapel or on the premises of the European Commission. Along with COMECE, the bishops' commission of the member states of the European Union, OCIPE publishes a monthly bulletin, entitle Europe Infos, published in three languages (English, French and German), with translations into Polish and Spanish done in Warsaw and Bilbao respectively and summaries published in Hungarian. A few years ago the Dominican fathers also opened a European centre in Brussels called Espaces where they organise excellent conferences, sometimes given by members of the European commissions. Our two orders work very closely together. Each has set up a European network of specialist groups. In the case of the Jesuits these include an apostolic network for young people, another for worker priests, one for sociologists and economists, called ÊEurojess, to study culture in general, or ecumenism, etc. These groups may not make the headlines, but they are a real force for promoting European dialogue. If I'm not mistaken, your own institute wants to set up networks in Europe, or at least in the countries where you work. Our experience of success and failure may be helpful to you.

Having been actively involved in several of these initiatives I am going to allow myself a few flights of fancy. I genuinely believe that the time has come for religious from different institutes to collaborate across the boundaries of their respective institutes. In any case there are very few specialists with expertise in European problems and our numbers are decreasing so we shall simply have to collaborate. And now let us go beyond the little circle of those with specialist knowledge. All religious, by virtue of their Christian faith, have a duty to stand up against nationalist and even European prejudices. We are universal brothers and sisters, called to build bridges between cultures and between religions, and we must refuse to be sucked into the idea of a kind of European stronghold. In the present climate of fear brought about by terrorism and Islamic militarism in general, allow me to include a plug here for a movement which is very dear to me and which I consider very important, namely Pax Christi. It was founded in Europe after the Second World War and is now spread throughout all continents. Its patron is St Francis of Assisi. And speaking of St Francis, who had the courage to travel to North Africa to meet a Muslim chief, there is no denying that interreligious dialogue, particularly with Islam, is a top priority in ensuring peace in Europe. The number of Muslims will certainly be on the increase in our continent, although their numbers may be low at present. Factory owners are looking for workers. If Turkey were to become a full member of the European Union, that country would have a higher population than the German Federal Republic which at present has the highest population in the Union. And Turkey would remain faithful to Islam. Religious are called to promote tolerance and dialogue in the course of these, often difficult, encounters. This presupposes, of course, that they approach them well prepared, which should not be difficult given the numbers of real experts we have in these matters in our countries. One particularly effective setting for promoting mutual understanding is surely our Christian schools. I wonder whether they are sufficiently aware of their role?

But there is another area where religious are called to build bridges and that is ecumenism between Christians themselves. Great progress has, no doubt, been made since Vatican II in relations between the churches. An unbiased observer, however, must be aware that at present we are not progressing very far. Relationships with the Orthodox Church are still fraught; relations with the Anglican Communion are hampered by differing understandings of authority and by the ordination of homosexual clergy; the sheer dispersion of Lutherans poses a problem. Nevertheless, religious are called to set up kinds of "laboratories" where the impossible could become possible. For Europe, whose missionaries have carried their divisions into other continents, the challenge is particularly pressing. Throughout my long life I have organised some 40 international conferences on China. This country is evolving at an extraordinary rate. There are more Christians there than in France, "the eldest daughter of the Church", as it was once known. But these Christians continue to belong to different churches. Their collaboration is conditional upon that in Europe. It is here that new paths must be opened up, with courage and prudence, recognising that a kind of mix of everything is certainly not the best solution. I know that there are regular contacts between the European Bishops' Conference and the KEK, the Conference of Christian Churches, but these exchanges remain too distant and do not make for advances in the situation if the grassroots are not pushing things forward.

You see now that I am coming to the question of the European constitution, and especially that of the preface. At present about 18 countries want God and Christianity to be named explicitly; others, including France and Belgium, are vigorously opposed. The issue is a complex one. First of all, what God do the Europeans profess to believe in? Surveys show that 77% of them say they believe in God, but only 40% of them believe in a personal God; for others God is a kind of energy, a faceless being, who has nothing to do with conscience. Should we also add the name of Allah, which would seem logical the day that Turkey joins the Union? In the case of Christianity, we notice that the vast majority of Europeans think of themselves as "Christian", but what does that mean? For many of them, the majority perhaps, it goes no further than a certain cultural affiliation. Now this is where the role of religious comes in. I am not suggesting that they become involved in the political debate that divides the factions. History has shown us that it is not for kings and parties to take on the defence of God or Christianity. The Bible teaches us that God speaks discreetly, in the silence, respecting human liberty. The religious is first of all called to give witness to the presence of God in history. The greatest service religious could pay to Europe would be to make God a little more visible, not by means of legal texts or manifestos, but by the very witness of life itself. This is why the issue of the headscarf exercises us Christians. I know that its symbolism can be ambiguous, but for many it remains a symbol of belief in God. And we must not forget that throughout many centuries of Christianity the religious habit performed the same function. Johannes Rau, the president of the Federal German Republic and a Protestant, recently published a pamphlet entitled Religionsfreiiheit heute - zum Verhältnis von Staat und Religion in Deutschland (Religious liberty today - with reference to relations between the state and religion in Germany). It is a talk he gave on 22 January 2004 on the occasion of the 275th anniversary of the birth of G.E. Lessing. He spoke of his regret that the headscarf had become a subject of debate, since he considered this showed a lack of respect for religious freedom and was a sign that people wanted to remove God from political life. I do not want to enter into the debates taking place in France, but it is interesting to hear another tune…. Let us note that, in England, scarcely anybody seems exercised about the wearing of religious headwear. A multicultural Europe will also be multireligious. Is an invisible witness really a witness?

On the occasion of the first "Summit" organised by the European Ethics Network in August 2002 at the European Parliament in Brussels, my friend Jerôme Vignon, who had been the first president of Jacques Delors' Cellule de Prospective and is now chief councillor of the European Commission, delivered a major speech in which he developed the idea of this "European soul" (See Sustaining Humanity - an Ethics Agenda for European Leaders Today, Johan Verstraeten, Maria Duffy, eds, Leuven, 2004, pp. 146-155). In it he stresses above all the need for an effective response in the light of the lack of a sense of direction. I shall only quote the closing sentences of his talk where, like a convinced Catholic, he underlines the need to be open to the transcendent.

"The task of formulating a global ethic acceptable to believers and agnostics alike is pressing in our, happily, increasingly secular context. In the absence of a sense of transcendence, my own experience is that the sense of incompleteness, the acknowledgement that something is missing, can instil that spirit of openness thanks to which the individual, the group, the nation, Europe itself, can acknowledge that their being is not determined, is not self-contained, but receives its fulfilment from elsewhere.

I believe that it is the vocation of religious above all to offer a vision that goes beyond the feeling of emptiness that is so prevalent in our European culture today.

As I reach the end of this talk, I am aware that I have only touched the surface, and with many generalisations, of the huge challenge that Europe poses. Each institute must respond in its own way. But there are two comments I must make.

A few years ago the American sociologist, Peter Berger, a Lutheran, published a book entitled The Desecularisation of the World (Washington, 1999). In it he describes how religiosity is spreading right across the world. He is right. The English sociologist, Grace Davie, published a study in 2002 entitled Europe, the Exceptional Case (London). So Europe then is the exception. But, if one looks at Poland, Slovakia and Finland, and above all the rapid changes in Russia, one would have to say that, in large sections of Europe, religiosity is on the increase. This does not, of course, automatically mean a rise in Christian faith. But it proves that we must be cautious in reading over superficial statistics. In any case, the positive evolution of religion can go hand in hand with a diminution in Christianity.

And now my second comment. In the first century of our era, the Roman world was very religious. The emperor was known as the pontifex maximus. At the death of Jesus, a tiny flock had been entrusted with the task of carrying on his work. By the end of the first century, there were about 7,300 Christians around the Mediterranean, according to the calculations carried out by Professor Rodney Stark in his book The Rise of Christianity: a sociologist reconsiders history (Princeton University Press, 1996). How did they manage to survive? First of all through their attachment to the person of Jesus. Secondly, through the deep bonds of friendship that transformed them into companions on the journey. And, lastly, because they were aware of having a prophetic vocation in an age when the Roman Empire was in decline. Today, we too are few in number, and we have the same vocation to be prophetic, to be companions to each other, and to swim against the tide. My prayer is that you may have the light to see what this means for you in the Europe of today.

And I conclude with the words of the great Isaiah:

"Look, I am doing something new,

now it emerges; can you not see it?

Yes, I am making a road in the desert

and rivers in wastelands." (Is 43:19)

I don't want to conclude with the words of the great Isaiah who so influenced Jesus himself. To help you somewhat with your reflections, I want to draw up a list of nine questions, of necessity incomplete, but touching on a certain number of real challenges:

1. How can we, promote a deepening of spirituality and theology among our little flock, setting out on a narrow way? Notice that Jacques Delors stresses in his speeches the need for on-going formation.

2. How can we protect and enrich our community life, given the dispersion of our members and the financial implications involved?

3. How can we ensure we retain our identity as religious while increasing our collaboration with lay people?

4. How can we make apostolic choices that are realistic and have some chance of lasting?

5. And in that context, how can we prepare for these changes, taking account of the priorities?

6. How can we preserve the essence of our own religious life and yet be part of the local Church

7. Since Europe is a challenge for all Christians, can we avoid thinking of going along with the idea of becoming truly "European" as some sort of pie-in-the sky escapism?

8. Should we be considering the notion of temporary commitment for young people?

9. Is "lowering the bar" for entry to religious life avoidable, given the paucity of candidates? How?

The members of the European Values Study have already published about 140 books and thousands of articles. These are just a few general ones on the research carried out.

The journal, Futuribles (Paris). "L'Evolution des valeurs des Européens", special issue 200, July/Aug. 1995 and special issue 277, July/Aug. 2002.

Halman, L., The European Values Study: a Third Wave, Source Book 1999-2000, Tilburg University, P.O. Box 90153 NL-5000 Tilburg; email: evs@uvt.nl