Step aside Emmanuel Macron and Jean-Claude Juncker. God's representatives on earth (to Catholics, at least) want to get their word in too.

Though not a member of the EU, the Vatican will on Friday and Saturday launch itself into one of the bigger political questions of the year: Quo vadis Europe?

The French and European Commission presidents earlier this year offered detailed contributions to the debate over the future of Europe. Now leaders of the Roman Catholic Church will engage with European leaders from across the political spectrum in a so-called high-level dialogue at the Vatican under the broad rubric of “Rethinking Europe.”

'Brexit is the tip of the iceberg'

The Commission First Vice President Frans Timmermans, a Socialist, will be there along with European Parliament President Antonio Tajani, a center-right Italian. So will Manfred Weber, the German Christian Democrat who leads the largest faction in the European Parliament, and former Liberal MEP Sylvie Goulard, who served briefly in Macron's Cabinet and remains close to him.

And last but not of course least, Pope Francis will play host.

Last year, Francis received the prestigious Charlemagne Prize, awarded yearly by the city of Aachen, for his services to European unity.

“The question is what do we want to do together today in Europe," said Father Olivier Poquillon, secretary-general of the COMECE, the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Community, a kind of European Commission of bishops, which organized the event. "After Brexit, after all the electoral processes, even in Germany there are some signs of disaffection of the citizens for the traditional way of making politics, we need ... to focus on potential ways to solve the problem together.”

“Brexit is the tip of the iceberg,” he added in a conversation in his office in Brussels. “We also had the election of [American President Donald] Trump. Today there's a mistrust for institutions and we've got to re-involve the citizens."

Poquillon said the purpose of the Vatican powwow, held to mark the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome that gave birth to the modern EU, was to find "good ideas" for Europe.

The Church wants to "create the conditions for EU stability,” Cardinal Reinhard Marx, archbishop of Munich and Freising and president of COMECE, said in an interview in May. Marx is friends with Juncker.

Fertile grandmother

So where does the Church fall on the great debates over the EU's present and future?

According to Marx, the Church isn't federalist. Its guidelines, he said, are “subsidiarity” and “solidarity.” Subsidiarity means “understanding when it’s important to take decisions at European level and when instead it’s more productive for these decisions to be taken at national level,” he said. And solidarity “is a principle that is critical to the recovery of peoples’ confidence,” the archbishop added.

Unlike Macron last month or Juncker in the spring, the Vatican isn't putting forward any detailed proposals and doesn't expect to come up with any in the next two days. “This is seen as the beginning of the process,” Poquillon said.

For the Argentine pope, the first non-European pontiff in more than 1,200 years, this isn't the first time that he has engaged with EU issues. In November 2014, he delivered a much-talked about speech in front of the European Parliament, likening the European project to a “grandmother, no longer fertile and vibrant.” Last year, Francis received the prestigious Charlemagne Prize, awarded yearly by the city of Aachen, for his services to European unity.

At this event, the pope is expected to send another strong message to Europe: “He will deliver a speech challenging us about specific responsibilities and the positive role the EU and EU citizens can play,” Poquillon said.

But he added that it's "not for the bishops to teach the politicians.”

The event also includes 18 workshops chaired by European ambassadors to the Holy See, and will take place mostly behind closed doors. The title of the first panel is “Integration — building bridges between and inside the member states.” Another panel is on “Dialogue — the state of democracy in Europe” and the last one is “The strength to create — What kind of economy for Europe in a changing world?”