Paris: The Aftermath | National Catholic Reporter

Paris: The Aftermath | National Catholic Reporter by MSW. MGB: Sadly, among American voters and polticians, people tend to see what they want to see.  This issue is a Rorschack test to determine how people already feel.  The results are not pretty.  Still, while it is good to take in people in need, it is sad that the Syrian diaspora is so thorough.



On France, the people MSW is calling neo-cons are simply just conservatives (a neocon is a former Marxist, probably Jewish, who has seen the folly of revolution and is now taking a very hard line in support of Israel - there is literally nothing relevant to the neocon ideology in this crisis unless we are talking boots on the ground in Syria and Iraq).  That said, there will be and never was a Christian Europe (no matter how many Inquisitions the Church tries), nor is the idea of Christendom going to re-emerge anywhere - and certainly not France, which has mastered anti-clericalism.



As for the left, individuals are tolerant, not multicultural - everyone still has their own culture, both in terms of ethnicity, religiousity and what we call grid-group theory.  This also has nothing to do with materialism, which is not a part of capitalism but a reaction to it (capitalists would rather keep all the stuff - materialism happens when they have to lower prices so everyone can buy so they can continue to make profit).  France, like Europe at large, has a decent Socialist Party and social democratic movement which insists that we work to live, not live to work.



That this has again emptied the Churches means that the Church must be more humanistic in its message, something the French are not wont to do, although the current Archbishop of Paris is at least sounding the right notes on the tragedy.  Just to be clear, the God of Christianity is the God of Israel and Islam - its how we look at Him that is important - mostly on an individual level.  He is certainly not some bloodthirsty moralist that wants us to make things perfect by violence, either the violence of terror or the violece of the state (sorry Kim Davis and Cardinal Burke).



There is nothing we can do about the Paris tragedy.  It is done and ISIS has made threats that we will respond to with hightened security - as well as heavier bombing and better intelligence.  The teaching moment, however, comes from how we respond.  That involves leadership.  Most Americans, like most people in the world, are not above fear mongering.  No one has changed their minds about refugees this past week.  Indeed, surveys published again this week show that this has always been the case.  It is up to leadership to act rightly, regardless of what the hayseeds back home say.  Its called courage and it seems that one of the parties has a bigger deficit in this than the other, although it has been the other way - though mostly among conservatives - no neo required.