A recent interesting article by Gerald J. Russello published on First Things, recalls the Pan-European vision of Stefan Zweig and its origins in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Though it goes deep into the problem of European Identity and Nationalism, it can only provide the shadows of hints of the solution. Like Zweig himself the article is “pessimistic about the future, but… equally convinced that the European idea remained possible.” Yet as to what the idea truly is, it remains silent. True the last concrete links to the Sacrétemporal Order have been severed, many of them centuries ago. Still the intangible remains, those who have killed the body have not killed the soul of Catholic Civilization. Indeed, the article itself asserts;
no single cultural force has been able to substitute for empire, language, or faith.
These are the three foundations of European Civilization, the Universal Catholic Faith, the Universal Language of Reason and Philosophy, and the Universal Holy Roman Empire. No cultural secularism or nationalism can replace the unity that they bring to the West, and those that have tried have only succeed in bringing wanton bloodshed and tragedy.