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As an Evangelical Christian, with a particular interest in the history of the Reformation, I enjoyed reading the post, fully recognizing that it was written from a Roman Catholic perspective. Obviously, Belloc saw things through the “prism of his own ideology”, namely Catholicism. I do come to the conclusion that he must have been an intellectual heavyweight. I note that he died in 1953,

I noted his reference to the English attempt to destroy Catholicism in Ireland and the French attempt to do the same to Protestantism in France. What he didn’t state was the absolute failure of the English and the success of the French through the revocation of The Edict of Nantes in 1685.

It’s a shame that he isn’t alive today. I’d love to get his take on things like Vatican II, the collapse of at least “cultural” Christianity in Western Europe, the growth of Islam in so called “Christian” countries and the rapid growth of Evangelical Christianity in Latin America.

Thank you for the posting and God Bless.

I do come to the conclusion that he must have been an intellectual heavyweight.

He is definitely an intellectual heavyweight, although I'm not sure I agree with everything he says. For example, in the article, he seems to think that capitalism was not all that great and was dying. That view is a bit more understandable though, because this was written in the 1930's, when communism and fascism were all the rage. However, at least he felt socialism to be inferior to capitalism, with his economic system of choice actually being distributism. Overall, though, he and G.K. Chesterton together produced some of the finest work, Christian or secular, from around the earlier part of the century.

I'm not so sure if he foresaw VII or the rise of Latin American Evangelicals at all, but he did foresee the return of a strong Islam. In his chapter on Islam in The Great Heresies, he pretty much expects the return of a strong Islam and chillingly says Vienna, as we saw, was almost taken and only saved by the Christian army under the command of the King of Poland on a date that ought to be among the most famous in history — September 11, 1683. I highly recommend reading that chapter. It's the reason I decided to post his whole book. Also, I believe he foresaw the collapse of Christianity in Europe, if he wasn't already decrying it in his day. I haven't yet read the next chapter on "The Modern Attack" (I am actually reading each chapter the day I post it, save for the chapter on Islam, which I read a while ago), but it seems to be about the collapse of Christianity and what we see now, especially in Western Europe.

Thank you for the posting and God Bless.

You're welcome, I'm glad you liked it, and God bless you too!