The position of ritual between the closed self-referentiality of its enactment and the inevitable entanglements of culture and history make possible a more flexible notion of the meaning of Europe than many other paradigms can provide. The problem of European unity is at once as vexing and as tantalizing today as it ever was, and the arena for its contestation is not limited to international debates. The intra-national divisions and discord that have marked the European landscape for as long as nations have existed seem at the moment of this writing to be waxing, rather than waning, in urgency. Within Spain, for instance, the guerrilla organization Euskadi ta Askatasuna (ETA) has officially ceased fire, but neither the violence nor the political pressure for Basque independence has disappeared. The overall secularization of European culture, the growth of Europe's Muslim population, and the scandals within the Church all challenge the influence of Catholicism as a meaningful part of European identity.