How Will We Save Western Civilization?
This was the urgent question and theme for a gathering of international leaders in London in late February, where I had the honor of representing Christendom College. Many among the leaders were Catholic and we found ourselves naturally reframing the conference’s question within the context of our faith and the mission of the Church. Instinctively, we drew on the sources of our intellectual tradition, relocating the hoped-for rescue of civilization within a metaphysics, anthropology, and politics that are illuminated by the Catholic faith. Inevitably, I also found myself testing the conference’s theme in relation to Christendom College’s mission: How should the secular proposal to “save western civilization” relate to both the college’s mission of “restoring all things in Christ” and the day-to-day life of our college?
Over the course of the conference, I returned again and again to the ways in which our faith unites the universal and the particular. As Catholics we look to a double horizon that is temporal, local, and personal, while at the same time believing that the small acts of generous wisdom and love that we undertake have eternal, global, and universal significance. Indeed, this double horizon was inscribed within the DNA of the college’s founding. When the founders confronted the question of how they might restore all things in Christ—a goal that is nothing if not comprehensive—they took the step of establishing a particular college that would form particular young people through a rich but focused Catholic liberal education and would shape them as whole persons through the local practices of an academically vibrant and spiritually well-ordered community.
And today, nearly fifty years later, we recognize that it is through our unique collegiate community that the universal and the particular continue to meet in unseen ways each day. At Christendom College, we study particular classic disciplines to form the intellect, allow daily Mass to nourish us on the pilgrimage to sanctity, and embrace an ordered rhythm of life to give purposeful structure to our days. And we do all of this so that we can reach a virtuous maturity that will enable us to carry out the vocation each of us has received, preparing to take up our roles within a divinely scripted drama that is at once local and—in ways that most of us will never know—world-historical. Some of our graduates will be called to serve outside of the public spotlight and others will take up very public roles. But each member of our community must choose each day to be formed intellectually and spiritually for whatever he or she will be called to do, whenever that call may come.
And during the conference, I found myself thinking about Pope St. John Paul II as well. Here was an individual, a single person who said “yes” to God, embraced the intellectual and spiritual formation that his elders judged to be necessary, and then was led to a prominent role in the political liberation of a continent. His formation and “yes” led him to articulate with new vigor the truths from which human flourishing and freedom are born. And, among many other things, it led him to articulate with keen insight a vision of the relation between Faith and Reason and the nature of Catholic higher education as it is born from the heart of the Church.
Thus we recall that, while it is true that we face a “civilizational moment” and are eager to work alongside men and women of common purpose, Pope St. John Paul II continues to teach us—by word and example—that our story is different from a purely secular vision, however noble that vision may be. The journey of the Church through time is distinct from the rise and fall of empires. We know that the primary agency for civilizational renewal, as Catholics, takes place through fidelity, virtue, and a willingness to become “salt and light” one day after the next.
Yes, Christendom College has a role to play in saving western civilization. We will form virtuous men and women who will be prepared to say “yes” when called to their roles. But this “yes” can only happen if it is preceded by a rigorous formation that entails the local and the particular: we must attend to our own intellectual and spiritual formation one day at a time, by learning the next Latin declension and walking to the chapel for today’s daily Mass. All of this will take place by becoming the mustard seed and the grain of wheat that is willing to fall to the ground and die, in order to bear much fruit. It will be by these means that world-historical change will take place, through which western civilization will be saved, and through which we dare to hope that we can restore all things in Christ. Sometimes the connection will be clear: if we drop the ring into the fire, Middle Earth will be saved. But most of the time the connection remains hidden and known only to the Divine Author.
Let us not lose sight of this double horizon. Let us say “yes” to the great call while also faithfully attending to the local, the personal, and the modest tasks before us each day. May God use us as he sees fit, and let us prepare for the roles to which he has called us.
Republished with gracious permission from Instaurare.
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The featured image is “Carlo III di Borbone visiting the Pope Benedetto XIV in the coffee-house of the Quirinale, Rome” (1746), by Giovanni Paolo Panini, and is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
