In a sense, I’m almost in agreement. Western Civ became what it was in Europe. I’d love to see Europe return to that era. But it doesn’t look at all likely. Europe has come close to demolishing Christianity in the last century, and it’s highly unlikely, given the influx of Islamic immigrants, that it will ever return to that golden age.
Right now, the old church flourishes in unEuropeanized (sorry about the word) countries. Africa’s dioceses conform more to the culture and tradition, never mind the dogma, of the old European church than Europe does. But it’s not just that. The Church is universal. What there is about the Roman Catholic Church that makes it unique isn’t the surrounding secular culture. It’s the essence of the Church, the same essence that transformed Europe and the lack of which will transform it again.
Don’t worry about an African pope (or a South American, or a Chinese, or an Aleutian pope). Who cares? The choice is not ours or even the cardinals’, it’s the Holy Ghost’s. (I’m not PC either.)
'Europe' is too blanket a word. I live in Poland, have lived here for 2 years now and no, Christianity is not diminishing here. Neither is it in Hungary or Croatia or Serbia or Bulgaria
Even in near godless France or England I've been to Catholic Churches that have a small, but intensely devout congregation. In England I've seen similar devotion among the Baptist and Coptic Churches there, but the Anglicans are dead man walking
Also, to you, flaglady47 , I recommend reading "PHILIP JENKINS - THE LOST HISTORY OF cHRISTIANITY" -- some excerpts
About 780 AD, the bishop Timothy became patriarch, or catholicos, of the Church of the East, which was then based at the ancient Mesopotamian city of Seleucia-Ctesiphon (in modern day Iraq). He was then 52 and lived on into his nineties, dyuing in 823 AD.
At every stage, Timothy's career violates everything we think we know about the history of Christianity -- about its geographical spread, its relationship with political state power, its cultural breadth, and its interactions with other religions. In terms of his presitge, and the geographical extent of his authority, Timothy was arguably the most significant Christian spiritual leader of his day , much more influent than the Patriarchs in Rome and Constantinople -- Perhaps a quarter of the world's Christians looked to Timothy as both spiritual and political head......
Well into the Middle Ages, the Christian strongholds of the Middle East included such currently newsworthy Iraqi cities as Basra, Mosul and Kirkuk, while Tikrit -- hometown of Saddam hussein -- was a thriving Christian center several centuries after the coming of Islam.
Focusing on the Asian, Eastern story of Christianity forces us to jettison our customary images of the so-called Dark Ages. From Timothy's point of view, the culture and learning of the ancient world had never been lost...
The Church of the East still thought and spoke in Syriac, and its adherents continued to do so for several centuries afterward. As late as the thirteenth century, they still called themselves Nasraye "Nazaarenes". Monks and priests bore the title rabban
..
To appreciate the scale of the Church of the East, we can look at the list of hte Church's metropolitans -- that is, of those senior clergy. in england, the medieval church had 2 metropolitans: York and Canterbury. Timothy himself presided over nineteen metropolitans and 85 bishops. Just in Timothy's lifetime, new metropolitan sees were created near Tehran, in Syria, Turkestan etc. Arabia had at least 4 sees and Timothy created a new one in Yemen. And the Church was growing in southern India
Timothy reported the conversion of the Turkish great king, the khagan, who then ruled over much of central Asia. He mentioed in 780 AD how :in these days the Holy Spirit has anointed a metropolitan for the Turks, and we are preparing to consecrate another one for the Tibetans"
The Church operation in Syriac, Persian, Turkish, Soghdian and Chinese
....
When Timothy died in 823, he had every reason to hope for his Church's future. The new caliph was friendly to Christian clergy and scholars, and although some ordinary Christians were drifting toward the new faith, there were few signs of any ruinous defections. Even if conditions under Islamic rule ever did become difficutl, the Church of the East had plenty of opportunities to grow outside that realm, with all the new conversions in central Asia and china, and the continuing presence in India.
Any reasonable projection of the Christian future would have foreseen a bipolar world, divided between multiethnic churches centered respectively in Constantinople and Baghdad. Timothy would hprobably have felt little hope for the future of Christianity in western Europe. Already in Timothy's last days, Charlemagen's vaunted empire was fragmenting, and falling prey to the combined assaults of the pagan Norsemen and Muslims Saracens. In the century after 790, ruin and massacre overtook virtually all the British and Irish monasteries that had kept learning alive over the previous two centuries, and from which missionaries ahd gone out to evangelize northern Europe. Spain was already under Muslim rule, and southern Italy and southern France seemed to follow. In 846 Saracens raided Rome, plundering the Basilica of Saint Peter and the tomb of Peter.
Latin Europe's low point came soon after 900 when, within the space of a couple of years, areas of central France were ravaged in quick succession by pagan Vikings from the north, Muslim Moors from the south and pagan Magyars from the east: Christians had nowhere left to hide. Perhaps history would ultimately write off the Christian venture into western Europe as rash overreach, a diversion from Christianity's natural destiny, which evidently lay in Asia. Europe might have been a continent too far