Road to sainthood for Robert Schuman- the ‘father of Europe’

Road to sainthood for Robert Schuman- the ‘father of Europe’

Subject: History

Context: Pope Francis on Saturday approved a decree declaring the “heroic virtues″ of Schuman, a devout Catholic during his life. He can now be called “venerable” by Catholics, one of the many steps in the long process to be recognised as a saint by the Rome-based church.

Concept:

• Robert Schuman, Luxembourgian-born French statesman who founded the European Coal and Steel Community and worked for economic and political unity designed to lead to the establishment of a “United States of Europe.”
• Schuman, a member of the French National Assembly from 1919, was arrested by the German Gestapo in September 1940 after the German occupation of France. He escaped in 1942 and worked in the Résistance until France was liberated (1944).
• As founder of the Popular Republican Movement, he served as minister of finance (July–November 1946), premier (November 1947–July 1948 and August–September 1948), foreign minister (July 1948–December 1952), and minister of justice (1955–56).
• While foreign minister he developed the Schuman Plan (1950) to promote European economic and military unity and a Franco-German rapprochement to prevent another war between the two nations.
• The economic aspects of his plan were realized in 1952 in the European Coal and Steel Community, a six-nation western European economic union, the first in a series of economic agreements leading to the formation of the European Economic Community (Common Market) in 1958.
• He served as president of the Common Assembly, the consultative arm of the Common Market, from 1958 to 1960 and was an Assembly member until February 1963.