Grist for the conspiracy mill

Iain’s post on Tuesday identified the belief of some that the EU represents a giant Papist conspiracy. I can’t help but wonder what they’ll make of the report in today’s Guardian that a group of Polish Catholics are investigating whether Robert Schuman is a candidate for sainthood, specifically relating to his work in founding the ECSC:

His sponsors say that Schuman’s claim to heavenly fame is that he was France’s foreign minister in 1950, when he put forward a revolutionary plan for pooling French and German steel production - to prevent the two countries from ever going to war again.

What became the European Coal and Steel Community, run by a supranational authority, was the embryo of today’s EU. It was an undreamed-of success, though certainly not the miracle normally required to qualify for canonisation.

Schuman was born in 1886 and died in 1963. His memory is already celebrated across the continent on Europe Day, May 9, the anniversary of the announcement of his plan.