Latest / The Catholic Current / LTACL: Goodbye France? Goodbye Europe? (Fr. Robert McTeigue, S.J.)

Transcript

LTACL: Goodbye France? Goodbye Europe? (Fr. Robert McTeigue, S.J.) · The Catholic Current

• 0:00
  Gotta ask, you've seen it too, haven't you?
• 0:04
  Goings-on in France, rioting,
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  vandalism, looting, setting fires to historic
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  buildings, desecrating cultural
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  landmarks. And the question is,
• 0:19
  why? And who's doing this?
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  And I know I hear it from some Catholics, they're wondering, how this could
• 0:26
  have happened. Because after all, just a couple of weeks ago, the Pope
• 0:31
  was in France. There were big crowds. Things were going to get
• 0:35
  better. The big crowds that the Pope drew was proof,
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  proof that things had changed. The people weren't satisfied
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  with business as usual. And there was in fact a
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  great spiritual hunger.
• 0:50
  That's one way. Of reading recent events. Uh, I have a
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  slightly different way. Stay with me, I've got a story to tell. Hi, I'm Jesuit
• 0:58
  Father Robert McTeague, your host every day of the Catholic Current, coming to you from
• 1:00
  the Station of the Cross Catholic Media Network. Let's take a closer look.
• 1:05
  Glad you're here. Depending upon who you believe and what you've been listening
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  to, there were some protests because students were unhappy
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  with the money spent on schools, and some of the schools
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  didn't have air conditioning, etc. And however true that was,
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  this is just spun out of control.
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  All over France, there is chaos,
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  violent, ugly chaos.
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  And that's spreading to Belgium. It's spreading to Italy.
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  Uh, it's spreading to Albania. Will Britain be next?
• 1:40
  Germany? Spain hasn't been doing well recently either, but I want
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  to focus on France. And again, it's because of the recent papal
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  visits where people thought the This was— dare
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  we hope for it? Dare we say it?— a new springtime.
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  The Pope was there, great big crowds cheering, applause,
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  and then insanity.
• 2:03
  I think I have an explanation. To just
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  show up and gawk as
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  the Popemobile goes by,
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  that's merely an event,
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  a spectacle. Curiosity or the
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  desire to show up on social media could have driven the crowds, and then
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  they went on their way. And how changed
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  were they for having been there when the Popemobile drove by,
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  or maybe hearing the Pope speak at an outdoor Mass somewhere?
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  How much change was there? You can't
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  really measure those things, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say
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  there was probably as much change from the
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  recent papal visit in France, a change for the good, as much
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  of a change for the good as there was in England after
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  Pope Benedict XVI visited England for the beatification of Cardinal
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  Newman in 2010. Yes, that much positive
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  change. You see, merely gawking at
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  a spectacle doesn't cost anything. It doesn't demand anything.
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  It doesn't plant seeds deep in the soil of
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  the soul. But somebody has been planting
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  seeds deep in the soil of the soul of French children.
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  Why do I say that? Because I was horrified to see a video
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  uploaded by the children themselves, young ethnic French
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  teenagers vandalizing a church in the Vendée,
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  about which more in a moment. And while singing along to a
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  rap song glorifying a man who is a self-described,
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  shall we say, uh, misunderstanding of the
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  religion of peace, who had been celebrated for murdering
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  Jewish children. So these ethnically French
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  kids were vandalizing a church in the Vendée while
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  singing along with gusto to that rap song. Why is
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  the location of the Vendée important? Because that's an area of France,
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  very Catholic area of France, that adamantly resisted the
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  French Revolution, the depredations of the French Revolution,
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  and they paid a terrible price in their own blood.
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  And it was there that those ethnically French children
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  decided to desecrate a church while singing
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  the praises of a man of another religion who murdered children.
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  Someone planted seeds deep in the soil
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  of the souls of those children,
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  and now they're bearing fruit.
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  Bitter fruit, poisonous fruit, but fruit nonetheless.
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  Nobody just drove by and got those kids excited once.
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  There was a plan, and there was a lot of work. And I have to
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  say, There were a lot of failures.
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  Large swaths of the French membership of the People Who Should
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  Really Know Better Club, including senior Catholic cadres of
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  the French division of the People Who Should Really Know Better Club,
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  failed to be salt and light for those
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  children. And now those children celebrate
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  the murders of other children, and they are infected
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  with self-loathing and self-destructiveness.
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  And my fear is that people will
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  be disinclined to talk about how it
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  happened, who was responsible, and what difficult
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  things must be done next in order to correct it.
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  So as I see large swaths of Christian Europe on
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  fire, I have to ask, What do
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  Europeans intend to bequeath to their children
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  at the moment? Remember this basic principle of organizational
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  psychology: the purpose of a system is what it does. So it seems
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  to me the purpose of European culture right now is to
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  hand on debt, destruction, and demographic
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  disaster to their offspring.
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  It doesn't have to be that way. There is
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  an alternative. I'm going to take a risk here
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  and quote myself. This is from a sermon I preached in 2013,
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  and I think it's something that should be on the mind of all Christians
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  everywhere. In 2013, I said this from the pulpit: With
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  God's grace, we can choose who will write the pages
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  of our history. Whether it will be written by our enemies standing
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  upon our graves and the smoldering ruins of our culture,
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  or whether it will be written by our children who learn in our
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  schools and pray in our churches.
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  That's what I said 13 years ago. I don't know
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  how many people listened. Maybe this time it'll
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  be different. We have work
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  to do. Christians have work to do while
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  there is still time. I'll be talking about this more in
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  the near future. Meanwhile, think of these things today,
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  take them to prayer, and talk about it with those you love. Go in peace,
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  and please do pray for me, for I am a
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  sinner.