Here’s an interview you will want to read.

It’s with Michael Burleigh, an eminent British historian, whose latest book, discussed here before, is Earthly Powers : The Clash of Religion and Politics in Europe, from the French Revolution to the Great War

The blog posts in which we previously talked about this are here and here.

(Michael Burleigh himself has chimed in below. We’re honored!)

The interview, at Inside the Vatican, concerns Burleigh’s interest: the role of Christianity in the West, particularly Europe, and its future:

Historical examples abound, said Burleigh, of the Catholic Church rising to the occasion when its influence was needed most. He cited three: Pius IX’s resistance to the encroachments of nineteenth-century secular governments; the Church’s fight for freedom during the anti-Catholic Kulturkampf in Germany; and, later, in the same country, the Church’s struggle against Hitler, exemplified by the anti-Nazi encyclical, "Mit brennender Sorge." "The Catholic Church has a reputation as a very conservative, even reactionary force in the nineteenth century," said Burleigh. "But while that is true, to a considerable extent, and while one can lament some of the ways the Church acted and the forces it aligned itself with then, what has not been emphasized–particularly by modern historians–is the often progressive, even liberating role the Church played during those years." Indeed, describing the all-out assault waged against the papacy during the reign of Pius IX, "Earthly Powers" comments:

"These attacks, together with the encroachments of the Italian state, prompted Pius to issue a comprehensive condemnation of contemporary errors, the eightieth of the eighty errors listed in his 1864 Syllabus (or catalogue) being that the pope should reconcile himself with progress, liberalism and modern civilization….What is not often stressed, in the customary identification of the Syllabus with its final jarring assertion, is that in article 39 the pope denounced the doctrine that ‘the State, as being the origin and source of all rights, is endowed with a certain right not circumscribed by any limits.’ The Moloch-like expansion of the modern state into areas where it had hitherto acknowledged limits was one of the most important aspects of these nineteenth century conflicts, and Catholics were not slow to draw attention to this as they sought to limit state authority….In the eyes of many…an authoritarian pope became the ultimate defender of liberty against states that liberals were pushing in a highly illiberal direction."

This, says Burleigh-along with the Church’s constant teaching that Christ gave St. Peter and his successors the power to bind and loose–was the immediate background of the Declaration of Papal Infallibility (which itself is often misrepresented, and very limited in scope, properly understood)–not some wild power grab by an unhinged pope. Though the recently-beatified Pius IX is still assailed and even caricatured today, Burleigh, without overlooking that pontiffs faults, sees him as one of the first world leaders to resist the seeds of modern totalitarianism, then being planted in the soil of Europe.

More:

Although Burleigh is at pains to stress he is not in a position to offer the Holy Father anything so presumptuous as formal ‘advice,’ he did, when asked, offer five suggestions he believes could strengthen the Church’s mission:

"First, the Church should stop apologizing for its past and vigorously defend the Christian heritage, especially the unique Catholic contribution to it. Engaging in repeated self-flagellation only serves to make the Church the doormat of history, and invites contempt. The Western heritage, for all its failings, is something to be cherished, not constantly attacked. The reason political religions have defaced mankind is precisely because too many Christians, unwilling to defend their faith, permitted radical anti-Christian ideologues to undermine the fabric of civilization. History has proven that the most dangerous place to be is in a radically secular, post-Christian society. The absence of faith creates a vacuum which extremists are all too ready to fill. As the anti-Nazi writer Ernst Junger famously remarked: ‘Deserted altars are inhabited by demons.’