Pater Edmund Waldstein, over at his excellent web-log Sancrucensis, has posted an interesting quote from Alexandre Kojeve, the Russian-born French philosopher best known as being one of the intellectual architects of the European Union and a lifelong sparring partner of Leo Strauss. It reads thus:
The political and economic investment provided by France in view of the creation of a Latin Empire cannot, and should not, occur without the support of the Catholic Church, which represents a power which is immense, although difficult to calculate and even more difficult to coopt.
Kojeve wrote that in 1945. Today the situation may not be so simple. For while it may be difficult for outsiders to coopt the power of the Church, it has been disastrously easy for insiders to do so. No ideologically warped earthly force had to break down the doors; those entrusted with the keys, intentionally or not, opened them up to a spirit of questionable progress, all under the belief that somehow, someway a “New Springtime” would emerge. Well, it didn’t, and it hardly seems likely that, barring a miracle, the situation will change anytime soon.
September 22, 2015
Kojève goes on to say: «But the success of the imperial initiative presupposes not only a radical political reform of the Latin Governments, but also a *profound transformation of the Catholic Church,* especially in its Italian and Spanish branches.» Little did he know…