Ross Douthat: evaluation

Transcript context

…Now you’ve been very critical of Angela Merkel’s decision to take in so many Syrian refugees into Germany, the heart of Europe. And of course many of those refugees are Muslims. So when I read some of what you write, I sense a kind of tension between Catholicism, which is universal in some important ways, but also a kind of Eurocentrism and a fear that the longstanding historical connection between Catholicism, Christianity, and Europe will be broken by migration patterns, by changes in the European Union. So, at the margin, how much tension do you see between a kind of Eurocentrism that’s in most of our thinking in the West, and Catholicism itself? There’s some substantial tension, I think. I think that the situation in Europe is a very challenging one for anyone to think through, but particularly for a Catholic, because you have this sort of — it’s the ancestral homeland of my faith. And we’re talking about stories: the story of Catholicism is a European story for much of its history. Much of the great dramas, the great debates, and so on take place in that continent. And when I sort of think . . . When I think of figures that I identify with, when I think of sort of the writers and artists and so on that I relate to, they are primarily European just because of that synchronicity. Because the faith is Europe, and Europe is the faith, historically. But now we’re in an era when that’s not really true. Europe is sort of a museum of Catholicism in this weird way. With some exceptions, but particularly in Western Europe, it’s a museum. And the culture of Europe is in certain ways hostile and becoming increasingly hostile to traditional religious faith. And at the same time, you have this sort of alternative of Islam whose potential power and potential ability to reshape Europe is sort of ambiguous. It’s not at all clear to me how powerful or how substantial that influence would be. And so the Catholic is sort of given, at least at the moment, this sort of strange choice. Would you rather have this museum of your faith be preserved in its existing form in a sort of post-Catholic, maybe still residually Catholic situation, or would you have it be changed dramatically by the entrance into Europe of the faith that Catholicism contended with for world mastery for hundreds and thousands of years? That’s a strange choice to be placed to someone, I think. And it’s further complicated by the fact that sort of overshadowing that particular tension is the reality that a large share of the potential long-term migration to Europe could be from Catholic and evangelical portions of Africa. It sort of adds a further layer of dilemma. And so my reaction to Merkel’s move — it sits at one remove from that debate. My reaction to Merkel’s move was very much as sort of a political analyst who thinks to myself, stability is better than chaos. As flawed as the liberal order is in various ways, I want it to hold up. Therefore I don’t want leaders to make these big, dramatic moves that I think could have an obviously destabilizing impact. So I’ve been skeptical for a long time of the sort of extreme sort of Mark Steyn or beyond–Mark Steyn analysis that Europe is inevitably going to go Muslim and so on. But having Merkel make a decision like she did sort of pushes me slightly in a Steynian direction, probably. It makes me think Europe’s elites are not reckoning with how big, how fast demographic transformations can change societies, divide societies, create space for all kinds of extremisms to flourish. That’s sort of my columnist’s pundit answer. reckoning with how big, how fast demographic transformations can change societies, divide societies, create space for all kinds of extremisms to flourish. That’s sort of my columnist’s pundit answer. But I don’t know exactly how to connect it to this deeper question of what kind of future of Europe, given the available options, should a Catholic desire. Because to some extent, if you’re asking me would I rather Europe be atheistic and sort of effectively anti-Catholic for the next 1,000 years, or rather have it be Muslim — perhaps I’d rather have it be Muslim, right? From a Catholic perspective, a sincere Islamic faith is preferable to a truly post-Catholic landscape. But at the same time, we’re not being fully presented with that choice, either. So, anyway, I’m just suggesting various uncertainties, I guess.…

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