By Michael F. Flach
Herald Staff Writer
(From the issue of 2/12/04)

A new European Constitution, expected to be approved this May, will change the whole political structure of Europe, said Dana, an Irish member of the European Parliament.

"It will change everything about Europe, which, prior to this Constitution, was a cooperation of equal, sovereign nations operating together," she said. "After this Constitution, you will have a United States of Europe where the leadership is greater than the parts that make it up. The union becomes greater. It’s a big, big step."

Dana, who spoke to the HERALD last week during a visit to Washington for the annual National Prayer Breakfast, is perhaps best known to U.S. Catholics as an Irish singer who has performed all over the world. She performed in 1993 for the Holy Father during World Youth Day in Denver and she regularly appeared on Mother Angelica’s Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN).

But Dana now faces her toughest audience as she struggles to provide a pro-life, pro-family voice in the European Union that she says is speeding ahead of the U.S. in its attempt to adopt a liberal social agenda through a European Constitution.

Dana was elected to the European Parliament five years ago as the representative of Ireland’s west coast, a rural area often neglected by industry that produces numerous immigrants to the United States. She is running for re-election in June. She deals with a wide-range of issues that impact her constituents, including regional development, tourism, culture, sports, education and transportation.

"I was elected because I promised to uphold and protect the Irish Constitution and to be diligent in telling the Irish people what was happening in Europe," Dana said. "For too long, people in Ireland have been kept in the dark about what’s been happening in Europe, the significance of European decisions on their daily lives. Only a handful of people in Ireland realize that between 70-80 percent of our national laws are decided on in Europe. That’s a shock to those people."

The Irish Constitution, she said, safeguards the central building blocks of society, specifically the protection of life from conception to natural death; the recognition and enshrinement of the family based on the marriage of a man and woman and that parents are the first teachers of their children and their position comes above any laws or political decisions; and that there is a higher power than courts or politicians.

European Catholic bishops last year criticized a draft of the European Constitution for failing to mention the role of Christianity in European history. They also said a reference to God should be included in the text as a guarantee of the freedom and dignity of the human person.

Dana, as part of a six-member group, launched a petition drive to ensure that Europe’s Christian heritage was mentioned in the Constitution’s revised draft, which is expected to be approved prior to the union’s expansion. She said 50 million signatures appeared on the petition, including many from Ireland and Italy, but the Constitution’s drafters still turned it down.

Every six months a different country assumes the presidency of the European Union. Ireland started its presidency in January 2004. There are 15 Irish members of the European Parliament.

"We have a very anti-Catholic agenda in the European Union," Dana said. "The European Commission is funding abortions in developing countries, which are taking money from basic development needs such as clean water and education. They have had to absorb that money in order to fund reproductive and sexual rights, which are against European law."

Dana praised the actions of men like U.S. Congressman Chris Smith (R-N.J.), who have ensured that federal money is not used overseas to fund abortion through development money. That has forced pro-abortion groups such as International Planned Parenthood to shift their focus to Europe.

"We have to have a networking of people who are concerned about these fundamental building blocks of society so we don’t become a Christian ghetto," Dana said. "If you go down the road of this extreme liberalism, where it’s illegal to pray in the classroom, then you’re going to end up with a Christian ghetto."

Dana said it is important for the American people to realize that America is in a key position as Europe moves rapidly to adopt the Constitution and create the United States of Europe.

"We need a relationship between Europe and America that is one of allies," she said. "It’s not good for the world if Europe views America as a competitor that must be beaten. A Europe that does not establish a close relationship with America is a Europe that is positioning itself wrongly.

"It would be very easy for a European Union, with 550 million citizens, to have strategic alliances that could leave America isolated. America has a lot to give, a lot to teach," she said.

"Europe is hurtling headlong down that path. The mechanism is there for dismantling any laws, any constitutions that stand in the way of a very liberal social agenda."

The European Union wants same-sex marriage, it wants to be the world leader in embryonic research, Dana said.

"The Irish government has been underhanded in its dealings on this," Dana said. It will not stand with other countries such as Germany, Austria and Spain who oppose this type of research.

Poland, a predominantly Catholic country, is preparing to enter the European Union in May. It had a restrictive position on abortion under the Solidarity Party, but under its new government, Dana said, Poland does not have a "protocol" to protect its pro-life position. That makes it vulnerable to a more liberal European Constitution, should one be adopted later this year.

"The European Constitution will give uncontrollable power to a centralized European Union," Dana said. Some countries (Ireland and Denmark) have a legal obligation to give their people a referendum on the Constitution.

"Europe is not ready to be a United States of Europe," Dana added. "Most citizens don’t want it. They don’t want decisions made in Brussels that are going to effect sovereign nations. We’re not like America where people left their countries. They recognized in coming here that they would be one people. That’s why you have Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans.

"We’re not Irish-Europeans. We’re Irish. We have a Constitution. Yet what they’re doing is rushing forward headlong to get this setup before those post-Communist countries get in. And that’s not right."

Dana stressed that she is not anti-European Union. "I think the idea that nations come together and cooperate as an alternative to war is one of the most beautiful aspects of the European project," she said. "It’s too precious to see it hijacked by this focus on power, being strong, being a world leader. What about the values that underpin any successful society? If your focus is money and power, what about the vulnerable? What about the protection of the unborn?"