It is sometimes said that when the Roman Empire fell, your everyday Roman had no clue that it was happening. Perhaps. They were too busy going on with life to notice such things. The Roman Empire had always been there and I am sure they thought it always would be. Even if they did know, they probably couldn't have told you the reason. Heck, over a millennium and a half later we are still debating the whys.
There is another saying in the form of a philosophical inquiry. "If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound?"
This past weekend has been the weekend of doom and gloom. It seems that Europe may have finally awoken to the fact that the party is over. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard had an article ominously entitled "The week that Europe stopped pretending." Likewise, Janet Daley speculates that the crisis in Spain portends the end of the Euro and Europe as we know it. The aforementioned articles are full of phrases like "capital flight" and "monetary policy." It is all very interesting and sobering at the same time and all completely besides the point.
I feel like a Roman at the end of the empire watching the whole thing going down and remarking simply, "Duh!"
Of all the articles I read this weekend on this topic, only one actually explained the real reason for the collapse of Europe (and eventually the entire west including the U.S.). It is all because we are spoiled and selfish. We have lived way beyond our means for generations. We had money for anything and everything that suited our fancy, everything and anything but children. We invented lifestyles we fancied rights and borrowed from the grandchildren we would never make to finance it. Mark Steyn says it this way.
Which means that our generation is running up debt that will have to be repaid by our shrunken progeny. One hundred Greek grandparents have 42 Greek grandchildren. Is it likely that 42 Greeks can repay the debts run up by 100 Greeks? No wonder they’d rather stick it to the Germans. But the thriftier Germans have the same deathbed demographics. If 100 Germans resent having to pick up the check for an entire continent, is it likely 42 Germans will be able to do it?
Look around you. The late-20th-century Western lifestyle isn’t going to be around much longer. In a few years’ time, our children will look at old TV commercials showing retirees dancing, golfing, cruising away their sixties and seventies, and wonder what alternative universe that came from. In turn, their children will be amazed to discover that in the early 21st century the Western world thought it entirely normal that vast swathes of the citizenry should while away their youth enjoying what, a mere hundred years earlier, would have been the leisurely varsity of the younger son of a Mitteleuropean Grand Duke.
The West is done. I don't see any way around it. It was a good run. As history runs contrary to the whims of those having a good time, we pretend it doesn't exist. The West, as we knew it, was created out of Christianity. When we rejected Christianity, we put the asterisk on our own historical footnote. So be it. Christianity, the Church and the world will go on without us. Jesus will go on without us, making good use of the willing, and his triumph is just as assured.
I put those two sayings together at the beginning of this post because in composite they formed the question most on my mind today. If an empire falls and there is no one left to hear it, does it even make a sound? If it does, I am sure it is something like a disinterested sigh.
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Not with a bang but a whimper.
Read Pope Leo XIII’s Encyclical titled Inscrutabili Dei Consilio, dated April 21st, 1878 ad. If one didn’t know better, it would seem (and he is) that he was talking to us with Obama declaring war on God, His Church, America and the world, along with what is going on in Europe as you have mentioned. Us frogs are sitting in a huge pan of water and we can’t feel the heat of the stove (hell) beneath us. GOD WILL NOT BE MOCKED and He has been trying to convince us to get back into His Grace once again. Thank you Pat, it is sad that far too many of us would rather listen to the likes of “the View” (never seen it, only hear about it) and other so-called, know-it-all ‘experts’. +JMJ+
Personally, I never understood why Europe thought the euro was a good idea. We lived in Brussels for four years when I was growing up, and the French and the Flemish side could not even get along then. The northern countries have always had a different economy than the southern countries and most have been suspicious of the Germans since the war. With a little understanding of history and culture,I would think that anyone could have seen this train wreck coming?
And Laura C., God bless your soul, you (and me) are about whom Pat
has written his fine, though ominous, article. It’s not about euros,
Neros, gyros or Ya-knows. It’s about ya-don’t-knows. Rejecting Our
Lord Jesus Christ, and—-if you will—-Christianity in general, has
left a huge hole or gap in the West and the World. A gap that started
between our ears, spread to our hearts and has threatened the eternity
of our very souls. WE NEED TO WAKE UP NOW!!! And we cannot do that
without the sharpest tool in the box—-God Almighty.
Pat takes this fact—“One hundred Greek grandparents have 42 Greek grandchildren. Is it likely that 42 Greeks can repay the debts run up by 100 Greeks?”—and concludes “The West is done. I don’t see any way around it. It was a good run.” I basically agree, but I think it’s very important to point out that Christianity is flourishing in the global South. Most Christians live in Africa, Asia, and Latin America today, not in Europe and the US. So yes, the West is in freefall, but lift your eyes up and see what God is doing around the world. It’s awesome!
Dear Pat, I have seen this coming for years. The wholesale rejection of the Church’s teachings on contraception,marriage,divorce,abortion and so on has caused this.Our fat and happy entitlement attitude is so engrained now that I believe a societal/moral collapse is imminent! God will not be mocked and our chastisement is almost at hand.Many of the “Catholics” that reads this will poo-poo the idea that anything is wrong. I have 2 small boys that will inherit this Hedonistic mess we call America. We make the Romans look like amateurs. This country was founded on Judeo-Christian principles. The founding fathers said this country can only function when we have a God fearing moral people running it. We don’t have that anymore. Our own Bishops can’t even condemn or at least counsel our own Catholic politicians who stubbornly go against the Church’s teachings. The politicians have no fear of any sanctions or consequences to their actions due to our impotent USCCB. Yes, there are some heroic Bishops out there but we need Bishops willing to go to jail or even suffer for the faith.I know I am. Most of our Bishops act like our politicians by hiding in their offices behind spokesman or press releases. I see a spark of hope in this HHS mandate fight but I’ve been disappointed before. We have to ween our Church off the druglike addiction of taking government entitlements for our hospitals and other church run institutions(colleges)etc. If Catholics understand right now our Government is a bloated aristocracy that right now is not our friend. We must stand on our own as the Catholic Church, a shining city on a hill that preaches the Gospel unabashedly in good times and bad and stop wetting our finger and putting it up to see where the wind is blowing. Thanks for letting me vent, Pat. Thanks for a great article.
There are 2 kinds of prophecy - Unconditional, that describes that which WILL happen no matter what, and, Conditional, that describes that which will happen IF things don’t change. Does God always use Conditional to give people a chance at redemption? or does He only allow Conditional to a point, beyond which there is no turning back to avoid chastisement? Trust God, DON’T DESPAIR. Live Holy and keep reaching out to others. In Faith, there is Hope. We know that God triumphs in the end.
Today finished reading “TheGreat Heresies” by Hilaire Belloc. I can’t recommend it highly enough—a short & sweet summary of where we are (quite prophetic as it was writtenin 1938) and how we got this way.
Thanks for the long overdue obituary, Pat. The nation founded by settlers seeking religious freedom and its progeny has been dead a long time already. We inhabit merely whats left of the decaying corpse. Who thought we would end up differently than our predecessors , the Jews? Captivity is here. We only need open our eyes.
Great article and so true.
People forgot that when you kill your young you kill your future and so now we all must live with the consequences of the “Me, Myself, and I” mentality. Sex was designed for procreation not recreation. Alas the spoiled Peter Pan syndrome of death prevails. “I don’t want to grow up and take responsibility for my actions.”
The West is not done - Europe is. The outlying former colonies are deciding if they are done, too. That which built the West - The Faith, lives on in expectation in the Third World. The good of Western Civilization will find a home there.
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