BISHOP BARRON: AOC mocks Western culture — Marx would love that, but I find it chilling

Many have commented favorably on the speech that Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave recently at a security conference in Munich. What they seemed to admire most was his willingness to look beyond some of the particular political and economic matters that preoccupy policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic — the Ukraine War, climate change, immigration, etc. — and to consider the cultural convictions that both Europe and America share.

Secretary Rubio lyrically invoked Dante, the Cologne Cathedral, Shakespeare, the democratic form of government, the university system — even the Beatles and the Rolling Stones — as representations of that common vision. But then he took a further step that especially caught my attention. Very much in the spirit of both Pope Benedict XVI and the church historian Christopher Dawson, he observed that culture is tightly linked to cult, that is to say, to religion. In a word, all the things that we value stand in relation to that which we value most highly. And therefore, Secretary Rubio was not afraid to identify the Judeo-Christian faith as the deepest and most abiding source of what is best in Western culture. Only, he concluded, when both Europe and America re-discover together the wellsprings of their common culture will they find the cohesiveness they both long for. ---More...