The Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community (COMECE)

This chapter describes the work of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community (COMECE), its evolving relationship with central institutions of the European Union, and with its partners in the Catholic world. The chapter then considers particular challenges, both intrinsic (arising from the character of COMECE itself) and extrinsic (focusing on those entailed by the EU’s culture of secularity). For example, the Treaty of Lisbon assures religious organizations, like non-religious ones, both access to and dialogue with EU institutions. COMECE’s advocacy, however, is necessarily grounded in Catholic beliefs and principles, in particular those of Catholic social thought. Such foundational principles cannot be coherently articulated in the language of secularity alone.