“Then let us seek help from over sea. Is there no Christian prince in Neustria or Ireland or Benwick who would come in and cleanse Britain if he were called?”
”There is no Christian prince left. These other countries are even as Britain, or else sunk deeper still in the disease.”
”Then we must go higher. We must go to him whose office it is to put down tyrants and give life to dying kingdoms. We must call on the Emperor.”
”There is no Emperor.”
“No Emperor . . .” began Merlin, and then his voice died away. He sat still for some minutes wrestling with a world which he had never envisaged.
—C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength
For most conservatives in Europe, the answer to the above question is probably a resounding “no!” Where can we begin with the reasons? The bloated bureaucracies (and ugly buildings) in Brussels and Strasbourg? The forcible foisting of infanticide, euthanasia, gender confusion, secularisation, unassimilable immigration, and ignorance-oriented ‘education;’ upon whole nations, regions, provinces, and cities, while prattling on about subsidiarity? The list goes on and on. One can hardly blame anyone with a brain for being disgusted with the whole idea.
And yet, and yet. It is certainly true that the original idea of the European Union as seen by Schuman, de Gasperi, and Adenauer was wildly different from that which prevails today. For that matter, the idea of basic questions of right and wrong as held by the majority of citizens has shifted, under the gentle decades-long push of government, media, education, and other such malefactors. In so many ways, the governed have been quietly corrupted by the acceptance of ‘gifts’ from the governing—always appealing to their subjects’ lower natures. To believe in God, King (if one has one), Country, and Family is extremism; moderation is to indulge in behaviours and hold beliefs that would have aroused disgust in the hearts of most not half a century ago. The growth of the European Union has paralleled and in many ways fostered these developments.
Moreover, it has become aggressive in punishing and/or insulting member states—primarily Central and Eastern European states, although Italy has received its share—that do not go along with its policies. As events push more national governments rightward in response to internal or external issues, Brussels and Strasbourg will undoubtedly become nastier toward them. But let us get a little hypothetical, if we may. Perhaps the real issue is not the Union of Europe, but this Union of Europe—or, to be even more precise, the Union of this Europe.
The sad truth is that the EU has decayed morally and spiritually alongside everything else in Europe. The fact that, in many European nations, demonstrating pride in one’s country is considered ‘fascist’ speaks to the utter insanity of the current ethos. That Europe’s traditional religious establishments join in the chorus of denunciation is both a symptom and a partial cause of this severe mental disease.
The two world wars, of course, were a large factor in this madness; but while some Conservatives mistakenly saw in the fleeting Axis domination the possibility of a shortcut to national regeneration, many saw them for what they were from the very beginning: opportunistic men of the Left, who hoped to use race or nation in place of the proletariat as their shortcut to seizing power. Just as Austria’s Dollfuss feared that calling elections in 1933 would see power fall into the hands of a Brown-Red Coalition, four years after his murder by the Nazis, Karl Renner would welcome them, saying, “you are National Socialists, we are International Socialists; we are brothers.” By way of severe contrast, Austria’s Fr. Heinrich Meier, Germany’s Claus von Stauffenberg, Denmark’s Kaj Munk, Italy’s Giusppe Bellochio, the Netherlands’ Fr. Wouter Lutkie, France’s François de La Rocque, Belgium’s Eugène Mertens de Wilmars, and many more throughout Europe saw the Axis for what it was, joined the Resistance—and, often enough, paid with their lives.
But the sad truth is that many of the governments and Eurocrats of Western Europe today have more in common with the Axis leadership, in terms of their basic views of God, Man, and the State, than with a very large part of those who fought against it. Could those heroes come back today, they would find themselves tarred as ‘fascists’ and ‘extreme rightists’ by those currently in charge.
As I have written before in these pages, the sorts of groups that were ‘mainstream’ conservatives or rightists from 1815 to 1939 usually shared five basic pillars in common: altar, throne, subsidiarity, solidarity, and some idea of an overarching structure embracing all Christian nations: the Holy Alliance, the Res publica Christiana, Abendland, the Occident, or Christendom. Coudenhove-Kalergi’s and de Rohan’s views of the latter gained a lot of currency in various places. After 1945, the American and Soviet dyarchy that ruled over Europe would not permit the first two pillars—but the United States appeared to be a country where the third and fourth pillars could successfully exist without either a king or an established Church.
It was from this latter that the Christian Democratic fathers of the EU derived a great deal of inspiration, along with whatever remnants of their original views the more benevolent of the two occupying powers could live with. They rightly saw that the Crown of Charlemagne, his image as Pater Europae, and his ceaselessly invoked Christian values, were powerful symbols that could evoke the kind of Europe they were hoping to build. But their effectiveness depended on most Europeans being a) historically aware and b) ‘Christian’ in some sense. The rise of the Generation of 1968 undermined the first requirement. The Post-Vatican II malaise in the Catholic Church, and the concomitant doctrinal collapse in the Protestant State churches, undermined the second.
Nevertheless, both sincere believers in and cynical apparatchiks of the EU and the Council of Europe continued to seek for the ‘Soul of Europe,’ to give a spirit to the ever larger and stronger state apparatus that was being erected as the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, and 2000s passed, and to give its subjects a common identity. To do so, however, meant revisiting a past that, like the heroes of the World War II conservative resistance, was an increasing embarrassment to the powers-that-be in Brussels and Strasbourg. Thus, according to the cultural heritage section on the EU’s website:
Europe’s cultural heritage is a rich and diverse mosaic of cultural and creative expressions, an inheritance from previous generations of Europeans and a legacy for those to come. It includes natural, built and archaeological sites, museums, monuments, artworks, historic cities, literary, musical and audiovisual works, and the knowledge, practices and traditions of European citizens. Cultural heritage enriches the individual lives of citizens, is a driving force for the cultural and creative sectors, and plays a role in creating and enhancing Europe’s social capital. It is also an important resource for economic growth, employment and social cohesion, offering the potential to revitalise urban and rural areas and promote sustainable tourism.
This anodyne phraseology attempts to conceal the complete divorce between the impulses that built Europe’s heritage and those that motivate its current public life. For example, while the 60 sites named as European Heritage Label sites are a mix of places directly connected to the creation and/or expansion of the EU, and a couple are connected to the historical manufacture of liberal democracy, the remainder were built by or for religious, royal, or aristocratic figures.
The reality of this divide becomes even starker if one looks at the cultural routes of the Council of Europe. Although some are purely aesthetic or economic, most are religious or monarchical in nature: Santiago de Compostela Pilgrim Routes; Via Francigena; European Route of Jewish Heritage; Saint Martin of Tours Route; Cluniac Sites in Europe; Via Regia; Transromanica; European Cemeteries Route; Route of Saint Olav Ways; Huguenot and Waldensian Trail; Via Habsburg; European Routes of Emperor Charles V; Destination Napoleon; Routes of Reformation; European Route of Historic Gardens; Cyril and Methodius Route; European Route d’Artagnan; European Route of Cistercian Abbeys; Via Charlemagne; the Columban Way; and longest and most telling of all, the Jerusalem Way.
Along these lines, one also thinks of the European Heritage Alliance. Co-funded by the EU,
The alliance founding members bring together Europe’s civil society organisations, historic cities and villages, museums, heritage professionals and volunteers, (private) owners of collections of artefacts, historic buildings and cultural landscapes, educators, town planners, etc. The ‘European Heritage Alliance 3.3’ thus represents a very large constituency composed of tens of millions of Europe’s citizens.
No one can doubt that all of these things are indeed precious treasures, very much worth preserving—Europe’s common heritage. But it’s a heritage created by those very things denigrated in practice by these major European institutions. In a word, at the moment, Europe’s incredible built and intangible heritage—the folk songs, dances, and customs of each locality—are like the dead bones of which the Bible speaks. And they are the best of what modern Europe has to offer.
It is certainly true that a united Europe of some kind is necessary to preserve its constituent countries’ independence in the face of the world’s greater superpowers. But as things stand, without a soul, the EU’s foreign and immigration policies will oscillate radically between ineffective and oppressive. Otto von Habsburg made an important point:
The Christian faith has made possible the growth and strengthening of Europe. The concept of human dignity and the development of human rights are inconceivable without Christianity and its Jewish roots. Although it is often claimed that human rights were only formulated by the Enlightenment, it should be pointed out that the thinkers of the Enlightenment period also found their philosophical basis in charity and the scholasticism of the monks of the Middle Ages. If faith disappears, other idols take the place of the Almighty. Man is oriented towards transcendence. God is rarely replaced by nothing, but by substitute idols or substitute ideologies that dangerously promise man paradise on earth. A glance at the world map shows: without a spirit of its own, this Europe is doomed to disappear. Viable political forces are only created by an idea, because this is the soul – also of the continents. Europe was, as long as it was Christian.
It is not Christian, and so it is not Europe—unless one wishes to contrast Europe with Christendom, as Novalis and several Spanish thinkers did. Hence the need for the first of the five aforementioned pillars: the Altar. Europe must regain the faith, if she is to be Europe again.
But alongside the Altar is the Throne. The idea of all the various nations of Europe regaining their respective monarchies seems at least as quixotic as the notion of the entire continent regaining her religion. But think for a moment: as the current oligarchies become ever more obnoxious and incompetent, the prospect that they will be replaced with equally thuggish but more competent leaders becomes ever greater. The fascists that the oligarchs fear may become a terrible reality through the actions of the oligarchs themselves. In such a situation, would it not be preferable to look to either symbolically reigning or entirely dispossessed scions of the families that played key roles in creating the European nations? Bound by the dictates of both the resurgent faith and national tradition, such persons would be imbued with sufficient authority and power to protect their people from the politicians.
In such a situation, where the member states determine just how much of the EU’s structure should be preserved, real subsidiarity at both the national and the provincial and local level could be maintained. So too, as Fathers of their respective nations, the monarchs could stand as centres of solidarity between classes, ethnic groups, and the like.
Such a Europe, made up of monarchies more or less in accord with one another, could then attempt to seek a higher but still tangible unity. It would seem to me that the old Reichsidee, the imperial idea, could be brushed off and re-employed, if its foundational nation states were indeed designed along the lines just described. One thing to keep in mind is the ambiguity of the very concept of empire. As Karl von Habsburg has put it:
The principle of the Reichsidee cannot be translated. Today I cannot talk to a French person about the idée impériale because, for him, it is Napoleon. I can’t talk to an Englishman about the Imperial Idea because he immediately thinks of some Maharajas. One has to treat the concept in the German sense of the Reich idea, namely as a supranational legal order that applies to all citizens.
But as Otto von Habsburg has noted, a Christian empire may actually take a very different form from what might be imagined:
Sometimes, like the Jewish people of the Old Testament, we think of everything in an overly earthy way. They were waiting for the Messiah as a king in the political sense, and we believe that the empire should be expressed in the forms known in history. In reality, however, the Christian empire is more the spirit of solidarity, the Pax Christi thought, the practical implementation of gospel principles, the cooperation of free peoples who acknowledge the Kingdom of Christ.
Nevertheless, such an empire would indeed—pace the founders of the EU—require an emperor: someone to wear the Crown of Charlemagne. As. Fr. Aidan Nichols puts it:
Catholicism, as Orthodoxy, has, historically, regarded the monarchical institution in this light: raised up by Providence to safeguard the natural law in its transmission through history as that norm for human co-existence which, founded as it is on the Creator, and renewed by him as the Redeemer, cannot be made subject to the positive law, or administrative fiat, or the dictates of cultural fashion. Let us dare to exercise a Christian political imagination on an as yet unspecifiable future.
The articulation of the foundational natural and Judaeo-Christian norms of a really united Europe, for instance, would most appropriately be made by such a crown, whose legal and customary relations with the national peoples would be modelled on the best aspects of historic practice in the (Western) Holy Roman Empire and the Byzantine “Commonwealth”—to use the term popularised by Professor Dimtri Obolensky.
Such a crown, as the integrating factor of an international European Christendom, would leave intact the functioning of parliamentary government in the republican or monarchical polities of its constituent nations and analogues in city and village in other representative and participatory forms.
This all sounds wonderful, to be sure—but how to get from here to there? Well, the first thing is to begin re-examining figures from the past century or two who grappled with the difficult questions of European soul and identity, and to bring the disparate nations close enough together to make Europe—or Christendom, the Sacrum Imperium—a living, ensouled reality. In addition to figures like Coudenhove-Kalergi and de Rohan, we might re-examine other ‘Imperialists’: Attilio Mordini, Jean de Pange, Gonzague de Reynold, Fr. George Moenius, Richard Kralik, Othmar Spann, Friedrich Schreyvogl, Erich Fürst von Waldburg zu Zeil und Trauchburg, and many others.
Of course, one would need for the Catholic hierarchy to once again commit itself to evangelisation. Similarly, if Europe’s Royals and Aristocrats dedicated themselves en masse to this work—and to be sure, there are clerics, royals, and nobles who already do—it would be much easier. But no doubt that shall come in time. We ourselves should try to be worthy of what our ancestors wrought, and cultivate in ourselves the same faith and loyalties which animated them. We can rise to the defence of what has been bequeathed to us, be it an historic building, the Latin Mass, or a local folk dance. All such efforts will ultimately help bring about the imperium, whether or not we see it in our day, and whatever form it may take. And the European Union? Conversions sufficient in number to transform society will transform its institutions as well. Whether those institutions will wither away or continue to exist depends entirely on whether they deserve to survive in the wake of imperial ‘restoration.’
