How Pope Benedict XVI Predicted Brexit

Pathos ^ | June 24, 2016 | June 24, 2016

[CondoleezzaProtege]

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI predicted the collapse of the European Union. I do not mean that he declared it grandly (or even authoritatively). Rather, through his books, articles, and quite a few sermons, he delivered a general syllogism:

I. Any unity rooted in mere economic interest is a precarious one.

II. The EU is a fundamentally monetary union (without the roots required to sustain genuine human community).

III. The EU is precarious.

Europe, and, by extension, the Western world, has only ever come close to unity by virtue of a common creed. In Europe: Today and Tomorrow, Benedict roots the idea of Europe in the Christianized Roman Empire which, “in connection with the book of Daniel, the Roman Empire–renewed and transformed by the Christian faith–was considered to be the final and permanent kingdom in the history of the world.”

Without a recognition (even a non-believing recognition) of Europe’s Christian roots, a genuine European unity will end in Brexit after Brexit, maintaining itself only “when the going is good” — a farce of fellowship that masks the monetary interest of its individual members. The situation is not so different in the United States. If we do not find some pre-political, pre-economic ground of our fellowship, we will perish as a nation. The old saying holds true: we either serve God or Mammon. To it, Benedict adds that we are only unified in God or in Mammon — and the latter is a shaky union indeed.

[CondoleezzaProtege]

“There were still sufficient unifying elements to make one continent of these two worlds: in the first place, their common heritage of the Bible and of the early Church…the same idea of empire, their basic understanding of the Church, and hence also the common fund of ideas concerning laws and legal instruments…and monasticism, which among the great movements of history had remained the essential guarantor not only of cultural continuity, but above all of fundamental religious and moral values, of man’s awareness of his ultimate destiny; and as a force prior and superior to political authority, it became the source of the rebirths that were necessary again and again.”

Europe: Its Spiritual Foundations, 2000

Over the last fifty years, this monetary aspect of European unification has become ever more dominant, indeed, almost exclusively influential. The common European currency is the clearest expression of this in the work of European unification: Europe appears as an economic and monetary union, which as such participates in the formation of history and lays claim to a space of its own.”

Reflections on Europe, 2001

The idea of Europe has fallen into a strange twilight today…Boundaries appear once again in their immovable significance; the antithetical character of nationalism could become stronger than the European fellowship that has scarcely begun to grow. It must be demonstrated anew whether Europe is only an idea or a real power for reconciliation.

Europe – Hopes and Dangers, 1990

Unless we embrace our own heritage of the sacred, we will not only deny the identity of Europe. We will also fail in providing a service to others to which they are entitled. To the other cultures of the world, there is something deeply alien about the absolute secularism that is developing in the West. They are convinced that a world without God has no future. Multiculturalism itself thus demands that we return once again to ourselves.

Europe and Its Discontents, 2006

[poconopundit]

Interesting. So that’s why the EU was eager to see Frankie put in there.

[parisa]

I am 100% convinced that the Papacy was blackmailed during bohole-EU-SOROS-Globalists’ collaborating days, to push out Pope Benedict and install their own lackey, fake pope Francis. His aim is to do and say whatever his Globalist bosses tell him to do and say.

[Jane Long]

I recall reading, years ago - when Benedict was first ordained, that Benedict would be the last Pope.

[loveliberty2]

In reviewing President Trump's visit and speech in Poland, I was reminded of Russell Kirk's essay, The Common Heritage of Europe and America, available for reading here

Kirk's words from that essay may be appropriate here on this day:

"The patrimony of a civilization can be lost at the very moment of that civilization’s material triumph. In any culture worthy of the name, men must be something better than the flies of a summer; generation must link with generation. Some men among us are doing whatever is in their power to preserve and reinvigorate our common heritage. This is not a work that can be accomplished through positive law or the creation of international commissions. Yet if a people forget the ashes of their fathers and the temples of their gods, the consequences soon will be felt in the laws and in international affairs. Without cultural community between America and Europe, there is little point in political alliance."