Europe Is In ‘Crisis of Civilizational Morale,' Wriston Lecture Says

Europe, especially Western Europe, is suffering from "a crisis of civilizational morale," author George Weigel said in a speech to hundreds of New Yorkers gathered for the Manhattan Institute's annual Wriston Lecture.

Mr. Weigel mentioned what he described as an attitude of "appeasement toward jihadist terrorism," but he said "the most dramatic manifestation of Europe's crisis of civilizational morale is the fact that Europe has depopulated itself."

By the middle of this century, Mr. Weigel predicted, because of low birth rates, 60% of Italians will have "no personal experience of a brother, a sister, and aunt, an uncle, or a cousin."

Mr. Weigel gave two examples of what he called, citing others, "the new totalitarianism" or "the dictatorship of relativism." He said that an Italian who had been nominated as Europe's minister of justice had to withdraw because he opposed gay marriage. And he said that Europe's constitution of 400 pages and 70,000 words "could not find room for one word, Christianity."

"I am not suggesting that the religious path to truth is the only path to truth," said Mr. Weigel, the author of a well-received biography of Pope John Paul II. He warned, however, that "soul-withering secularism threatens the future of the West."

The chairman of the Manhattan Institute, Dietrich Weismann, made two announcements about the institute at the beginning of the event Tuesday night at the Pierre Hotel. He said the institute is establishing a new "Center for the American University," to be directed by James Piereson, the former executive director of the Olin Foundation. And he said that the longtime editor of City Journal, the institute's influential magazine, Myron Magnet, would step down as editor at the end of the year. Mr. Magnet will continue to write for the magazine as editor at large, while the editing duties will be assumed by Brian Anderson, who is already an editor at the magazine.