Gov. Romney was right about the empty churches of Europe

“”I’m not sure that we fully appreciate the profound implications of our tradition of religious liberty.

I have visited many of the magnificent cathedrals in Europe.

They are so inspired … so grand … so empty.

Raised up over generations, long ago, so many of the cathedrals now stand as the postcard backdrop to societies just too busy or too ‘enlightened’ to venture inside and kneel in prayer.”

“To put the matter directly: Europe, and especially western Europe, is in the midst of a crisis of civilizational morale….the most dramatic manifestation of Europe’s crisis of civilizational morale is the brute fact that Europe is depopulating itself.

Germany will lose the equivalent of the population of the former East Germany; and Spain’s population will decline by almost one-quarter.

Europe is depopulating itself at a rate unseen since the Black Death of the fourteenth century.” (The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics Without God by George Weigel)