Hilaire Belloc’s diagnosis, and us

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

8:30 AM. Reading The Crisis Of Civilization still; up to chapter 3, “The Reformation And Its Consequences.” Very clearly presented summary from the Catholic point of view. If he is right, this is a way – he would say the way – to understand our times, our civilization’s mortal sickness. Yet there can be no return to what was – so we are left with the necessity of a flight forward, as the Germans say. There is no safety in retreat, no possibility of remaining where and as we are. But where is the “forward” to which we must fly? Where is the “forward” to which we can fly? I who live only at the periphery of current events would be the last to find it, though perhaps among the first to see the need and the process of decay.

If we survived the secular heresy that was communism, may we not survive the internal divisions of Christendom? And yet – it would have to have a place for such as I am. And it is difficult to see where that is going to come from, or how it is to take shape.

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