Decline and Fall?

 Eighteenth Friday after Pentecost

St. Augustine was in Carthage on the Mediterranean coast of North Africa in 410, when he got the news. He was Bishop of much of North Africa and was in a terrible struggle among the Christians under his ecclesiastical authority, the Donatist Controversy. Although he triumphed, in my view he did not handle it well. I'll explain the controversy on another occasion.

The bad news that Augustine received was that the city of Rome, the capital of the greatest empire the world had ever known, had been sacked by a barbarian tribe, the Goths, under the leadership of their warrior Alaric. Roman civilization was falling apart. Chaos was the order of the day. The Goths stole whatever struck them as of value and destroyed what they couldn't steal. Only structures as massive as the Pantheon escaped. The damage was done in a few short days, then the Goths moved on to sack another city. 

 

The fifth century was a time of massive uprooting of populations, vast migrations, and intense warfare. Huns, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, and half a dozen other barbarian groups had moved from eastern Europe and Western Asia to invade the Roman Empire. It would be another 66 years before the time that historians traditionally date the fall of the Roman Empire, 476, when Romulus Augustus, the last Roman to be emperor of the Empire died. 

 

I'm hesitant to compare one historical time period with another. Ancient history is radically different from our own. Yet I'm beginning to feel some similarity between the fifth century in Europe and North Africa and our own time. 

 

I am not an apocalyptist, but if I were, I would be seeing signs of the end. What I am seeing is a worldwide pandemic that we may have the means but not the will to control. What I am seeing is  uncontrollable flames slashing gaping holes of ruin in a once beautiful region of our country. What I am seeing is an utter disregard for the future of our planet as species after species go extinct, oxygen diminishes with denuding of were once great forests, while carbon dioxide increasingly fills the atmosphere, temperatures rise, glaciers melt, and seas edge themselves inland. What I am seeing is a nation in deep division, with a leader sowing the seeds of electoral chaos. What I am seeing is a potential for economic ruin as the pandemic puts the poor and marginalized out of work and an economy that is increasingly reliant on the printing of more and more money to keep the ship of state afloat. What I am seeing is vast migrations, not of warrior tribes, but of desperate poor, from lands ravaged by war, violence, and poverty. What I fear that I am seeing is the entering of a new Dark Ages. 

I am by nature and faith an optimist, but my congenital optimism is being put to the test. In the meantime it is our Christian task to love, to care, to work, and to pray. And yes, it is also our Christian task to hope,

Faithfully,

Christian