EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - With EU personalities over the weekend speaking out on the occasion of Schuman Day, Robert Schuman himself, an early architect of the Union, has hit a hurdle on his way to becoming a Roman Catholic saint due to the lack of a miracle...the Vatican has been enquiring into his eligibility for 21 years. But despite abundant material testifying to his piety and good works, the Schuman dossier has hit a major stumbling block.
"I even asked him [Pope John Paul II] myself on this point ... and he answered clearly that in the case of a politician, it is necessary to proceed with great rigour and to demand a miracle," Pierre Raffin, the Bishop of Metz, wrote in a letter in 2004 forwarded to EUobserver by his office.
Despite the Vatican using the Euro, it is not in the EU because it is an absolute monarch therefore not democratic enough to be eligible to join (no really don't laugh). However that doesn't stop the EU wanting said absolute monarch to give one of their supposed founding fathers special status: sainthood.
However, apparently, the difficulty is:
When asked if the situation had changed under Pope Benedict XVI or if any new information had come to light, a contact in the Vatican's embassy to the EU in Brussels said: "We are still waiting for a miracle. One miracle is required for beatification and two for sainthood."
I can think of one miracle - that the EU has lasted so long.
