The Struggle for the Soul of Europe

Posted on Sun, Mar. 05, 2006
Pope's goal nothing less than saving Europe

As we enter the first Lent of Benedict XVI's young papacy, much has been made of American obsessions - the church's stance on homosexuality, birth control, the ordination of women - that amount to little more than parochial concerns.

But in so doing, Americans may miss the historic significance of the current pontificate: Pope Benedict is fighting for the future of Europe.

To understand Benedict, there is no better place to start than God's Choice, George Weigel's brilliant and important book about Benedict's election. As Weigel writes, Benedict "is likely to be the last European pope for a long time."

The demographic makeup of the Catholic Church has changed in the blink of an eye. In 1978, according to Weigel, Africa had 55 million Catholics; by 2003, the number had grown to 144 million. By 2025, there may be 230 million. The church is similarly flourishing in Latin America. Of the 115 electors at last year's conclave, only 58 were European. Forty percent of the electing cardinals were from less-developed countries. These numbers were not lost on the church hierarchy.

Benedict's brother cardinals, Weigel explains, "elected him in part because of their profound concern for the state of Europe and the condition of the Catholic Church in its historic heartland."

Their concern is well-founded.

As Phillip Longman describes it in his book The Empty Cradle, Europe is in a demographic death spiral, with fertility rates far below the replacement level. By 2050, Longman writes, Spain will lose 25 percent of its population; in Italy, the working-age population will decrease by 41 percent. Russia may be the canary in the Western coal mine. It is already losing 750,000 people per year; prospects there are so black that 70 percent - 70 percent - of pregnancies end in abortion.

The TrekMedic muses - and all the while, European Muslims are outpacing Christians, making the Islamatization of Europe all the more likely!

While Europe is shrinking, the average age of the remaining population is increasing. This creates an economic trap as the welfare state is pushed to support more people, for longer periods of time, using a tax base funded by fewer and fewer workers.

This economic crisis leads to a security crisis, as the immigration of Muslims hostile to European culture leads to incidents such as the Danish cartoon uproar, the French car-burning riots, and assaults on public figures such as Theo Van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

The European Catholic Church has also fallen on hard times as the secular elites attempt to smother what was once their culture's animating force. The Italian intellectual Rocco Buttiglione was prevented from taking office on the European Commission because his Catholicism was deemed too radical. The drafters of the EU constitution fought a bloody battle to airbrush any reference to Christianity from the mammoth document.

The TrekMedic further muses: And it all falls into the UNtied Nations' master plan.

If there is any good news, it's that, as Joseph Bottum writes, "Europe is about as deChristianized as it's likely to get; everyone who's going to leave the church already has."

In the face of all this, how can Benedict stop a civilization from committing suicide?

(snip)

The "advance of Islam" is once again a threat to the European concept. Addressing the Vatican diplomatic corps, Benedict said that "attention has rightly been drawn to the danger of a clash of civilizations... . Its causes are many and complex, not least to do with political ideology, combined with aberrant religious ideas." Unlike many in the West, the Pope has not been afraid to point out the troubling incompatibilities of Islam and Western liberalism.

The population decline is even more worrisome; as the Pope laments, "Europe is infected by a strange lack of desire for the future."

The TrekMedic reiterates: This "infection" is called "UNtied Nations disease."

(snip)

Yet it seems more likely that Benedict XVI will instead attempt to reinvigorate Europe - to argue it out of dystopia. Paraphrasing Arnold Toynbee, he reminds us that "the fate of a society always depends on its creative minorities. Christian believers should look upon themselves as just such a creative minority, helping Europe to reclaim what is best in its heritage."

The TrekMedic rants: At this rate, Europeans will not just become a "creative minority," but a minority in fact!

(snip)

Talking an entire continent away from the abyss is an impossible task, particularly since the leading lights of Europe want no part in the conversation. But converse they will. Benedict's intellectual stature - he is a member of the Académie Française, the Rhineland-Westphalia Academy of Sciences, and even the European Academy of Sciences and Arts - cannot be ignored, even by those who wish to most.

Like his predecessor at St. Peter's, he may be the one man on Earth capable of the impossible.

The TrekMedic sighs: Amen!