(From our correspondent in Brussels) “Christian culture is unity in diversity. It is dialogue, respect for otherness. Listening to others. And nowadays there’s a desperate want of a feeling of otherness in our societies”. This is the specific contribution that Christian culture makes to Europe today, as pointed out by father Olivier Poquillon, general secretary of Comece (Commission of EU Bishops Conferences), during the Conference of dialogue on “Promoting the Christian heritage of Europe”, supported by the European ecclesial organisation as part of the European Year of Cultural Heritage, chosen by the European Union for 2018. “We are into anthropological systems that reject others just because they are different. Otherness, a Christian heritage for mankind, has created an anthropology that makes man a being who relates to others, who receives, shares and transmits life”. “For 2000 years, the Church has been living in Europe”, the Dominican father comments. “Its being there is not a heritage in the sense that one must wait it is dead before it can take it in. The Church is alive and real”. “The European populations are said not to love Europe”, father Poquillon reflects. “But maybe they do not love its institutions. After all, Europe is a young institution, perhaps it just has to overcome this teenage phase so it can grow up and find, at last, that maturity that will let it dialogue with everyone, without being afraid of otherness, of difference. That’s the only way for it to be able to build the common good together again”.