American writer finds reason for hope in Europe’s Catholic believers despite small numbers

In a column published on The Catholic Thing, an American writer who travels to Europe often argues that there is more reason for hope about Christian Europe than many commentators suggest. He says his hope rests not on Europe’s institutions, economies, or politics but on the Christians he has come to know there. He notes that many Americans visit Europe for its Christian past but describe the present as worse off in economics, religious practice, respect for life, birthrates, and optimism about the future.

The writer’s own connection to Europe began early. He says he spent his formative years in Slovenia and Germany, and when he moved to Edinburgh for a master’s degree he attended Mass at St. Albert’s, the home of the University of Edinburgh’s Catholic Student Union. He describes being guided by Dominican priests and meeting Catholics from across Europe whose charity and appreciation of their heritage led him to place the Faith at the center of his life. He also writes that the Latin liturgy and weekly concert Masses at St. Mary’s Catholic Cathedral mattered less to him than the example of his Catholic friends.

He also describes the decline of practice in the city. Of the University of Edinburgh’s 49,000 students, he estimates the chaplaincy has around 100 weekly student visitors, or about 0.2 percent. He acknowledges that this is not a good ratio by numbers, but he argues that the future of Catholic Scotland or Christian Europe will depend less on registered membership or structures than on the fidelity of its Christians.

The writer describes friends who sponsored young adults into the Church. In Edinburgh, a friend younger than he was at the time had sponsored several young Catholics. In Slovakia, a friend met a fellow weightlifter at his gym and, a year later, stood beside him as his sponsor into the Catholic Church. The writer says he has seen these friends pray often, marry young, observe the Sabbath, and build close community, passing their faith to the next generation (Psalm 78:4).

He contrasts this with what he hears in Washington, D.C., where, he says, many conversations about Europe are fatalistic. Some argue that secularization, demographic decline, the influence of Islam, and mass migration have already settled whether Europe has a future. The writer says he is less doubtful, while acknowledging “the darkness of our present age.” He distinguishes hope from optimism, which he says depends on favorable circumstances, and cites St. John Paul II’s words calling young people “the future and the hope of the Church and of the world.”

The writer says his European friends are “not necessarily winning the ‘culture war,'” but are refusing to be shaped by the prevailing culture. He notes that they have reason to be bitter about institutions that have failed them, yet he describes them as animated by a belief that the Gospel is true. He says many work tirelessly in private and public to defend their faith, creating ventures and evangelizing without aggression.

To place this in history, he recalls that the Roman Empire required that Caesar be acknowledged as Lord, and that third-century Christians quietly refused, with many killed for it. He also cites Václav Havel’s essay “The Power of the Powerless,” which he presents as an argument that people can live as though Christianity were true. The writer concludes that Christians in Europe are not waiting for history to turn in their favor before living faithfully, and he states his view that civilizations are renewed “one soul, one family, one church, one saint at a time.”

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