Re: Religious decline in Europe?
Indeed. The French Revolutionaries thought they finished Christianity, that it was morbid bound. Yet as Hilaire Belloc stated, the exact opposite happened. The revolution, through its assaults on the faith, actually gave it new life. He also noted that one dramatic change that occurred in France as a result was that for the first time in a century, the greatest French minds were devoted to defending the Catholic faith as opposed to attacking it like their 18th century counter-parts.
Christianity has more life in Europe than many realize. Doesnt mean there isnt much work to do, but the situation is not as drastic as the media claims. Greeley is also right(although for reasons he didnt realize) that the church leaders(who support Vatican II) simply cant come to the fact that their experiment failed dismally, so they like to rant on about social decline while ignoring their important role in it.
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"Everything begins in mysticism and ends in politics."
--Charles Peguy
"Love for a man's own nation must not make a man into a wild animal, which tears down and provokes revenge; it must make him more noble, so that he can gain the respect and love of other nations for his nation. Therefore love toward your own nation is not contradictory to love for the whole of mankind; they complement each other. All of the nations are children of God."
--Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac, 1938
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