A Crusade For A Catholic Europe

Extract

The task of reconstruction which faces the present generation is indeed overwhelming. It requires not only vast economic and political readjustments. It involves also the spiritual regeneration of Europe. To-day Europe is threatened far more seriously than was the Roman Empire by the barbarian invaders for the barbarian invaders could only destroy its body, its spirit proved indestructible. It was powerful enough to wean the conqueror from’ his barbarous ways, and to bring forth that flower of civilization in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. With its spirit the grandeur that was Rome lived on, shaping the Empire of Charlemagne, that high - minded attempt to express the spiritual unity of Europe in a political form, permeating the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, more a dream than a reality. In a thousand ways it moulded the thoughts of Europeans, a tower of strength, a pattern of virtue, an inspiration to action. It lived on in the Church.

Europe derives her strength and her mission from Christianity alone. But the European nations have recklessly squandered their Christian patrimony. They have allowed paganism to raise its head. They have succumbed to the spirit of materialism. They have drifted so far away from God and His Christ that the present age can justly be styled the post-Christian era. They are even now preparing to settle the world without recourse to its Creator, disregarding His laws, in a spirit diametrically opposed to that of His love.