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2005-04-20 -Short Attention Span Theater-

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Posted by thibaud (aka lex) 2005-04-20 16:08|| || Front Page|| [1 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 This part is profound:

"For the many Europeans who dislike religion, it was easy enough to dismiss the late pope as a "backward" Pole, and to find him inconsequential even when he somehow persuaded millions of young people to attend his outdoor "youth" Masses. But the advent of a German pope, who in fact shares many of John Paul II's views, may well make religion part of the European political debate again, this time on the western as well as the eastern half of the continent. At the very least, a German-speaking pope will be hard for Germans to ignore.

[This] might also hold clues to the future of the battered, long-suffering transatlantic relationship. While many of the cultural differences between Europe and America are vastly overstated, the religious differences are profound. It's hard to be in politics in this country and not at least pay lip service to religion, as John Kerry can attest. In Europe, by contrast, political leaders who profess religious beliefs are derided. Tony Blair is mocked for his piety; the French protested when their president went to the pope's funeral; and the Italian Rocco Buttiglione had to withdraw his candidacy as Euro commissioner on the grounds that his Catholicism might get in the way of his legal judgment.

Perhaps [the cardinals] they are betting that the enormous growth in the European Muslim population, with all the questions it raises about national identity in countries such as Holland and France, may lead many Europeans, if not directly back to religion, then at least to a recognition that there is a role for the church in public life, or at the very least in history books...."

Posted by thibaud (aka lex) 2005-04-20 4:24:32 PM|| 2005-04-20 4:24:32 PM|| Front Page Top

#2 Hatred of religion allows the European left (and for that matter the center) to pretend that the WoT is a struggle between two varieties of religious extremism. If they were to actually listen to Christian intellectuals, like Benedict XVI, they'd have to abandon this myth and start to live in the real world.

Posted by thibaud (aka lex) 2005-04-20 4:29:56 PM|| 2005-04-20 4:29:56 PM|| Front Page Top

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