This article is very long. I admit it is not for everyone. However, if you are an intellectual you might want to read about Pope Benedict’s views on the decline of Western civilization. He sees the early American Republic model of government as the best way to save Europe. For a European Pope to say the West is in decline and to say the American Republic form of government is the answer for the West is quite unexpected.
Benedict’s latest views on postmodernism and cultural relativism where cultural has separated from truth are also very astute observations.
Meanwhile, Liberals in America are now rapidly moving us in the wrong direction away from an authentic Constitutional Republic to the Western system that the Pope believes has caused the Western decline. Pope Benedict is correct.
The Pope’s quest to save Western civilization
Pope Benedict XVI has identified several causes for the intellectual, moral, cultural, and spiritual decline of the European civilization. I was thrilled to learn about this because I have independently come to some of the same conclusions. Allow me to recapitulate his conclusions as five theses:
1) The West has declined because of the modern separation of faith and truth.
2) The West has declined because of the modern separation of metaphysical truth and practical truth.
3) The West has declined because of the modern separation of freedom and truth.
4) The West has declined because of its postmodern rejection the old rapprochement between Christianity and the classics of ancient Greece and Rome.
5) The attempt to rehabilitate of West by returning to the culture of premodern Catholic Europe would be a mistake. He points to another way forward.
Benedict points to the American Republic
Benedict encourages Europe to learn from the 18th and 19th century Anglo-Saxon world and its balance of freedom, order, truth, and morality in the public and private spheres. The American experiment as described by Alexis de Tocqueville is particularly instructive, according to Benedict!
American conservatives who are seeking the restoration of the old Republic and authentic constitutional government should take heart. What we are seeking is what the pope says Europe should be seeking to find their way back to the right road. American conservatives, whether Protestant or Catholic, are in the vanguard of history.
Note to the Reader: Since writing this essay, I discovered that Pope Benedict has identified yet another way that the West has gone wrong. The postmodern West has separated truth from culture. The result is cultural relativism, which is the triple fallacy that: 1) man has no nature, but is a cultural construct, 2) all cultures are equally valid, and 3) “truth” is culturally determined. A separate essay will be needed to deal with the myth of multiculturalism that is based upon this triple fallacy
(bold emphasis mine).
