In the dire civilization-ending circumstances we are in, it's tempting to grasp onto anything or anyone that would promise a way out, but Catholics should remember: Christ is the only way.
By Joseph Pearce
Crisis Magazine
January 5, 2026
Inspired by Donald Trump's rallying cry to "make America great again" there are calls across Europe to "make Europe great again." The "MEGA" battle cry has been taken up by populists who seek to liberate Europe from the catastrophic clutches of the European Union. This is hardly a surprise considering the way that the EU has overseen the cultural and political collapse of the nations entangled in its nihilistic web.
In such a reactionary climate it is well to remember that our enemy's enemy is not necessarily our friend. Take, for example, the political philosophy being advanced by Pepe Escobar in his new book, Il Secolo Multipolare (The Multipolar Century). Essentially, Mr. Escobar is seeking a resurrection of Europe based on a weird blend of neo-pagan culture and godless humanist philosophy.
"If the current, fragmented collective West would ever have a chance to be rescued from the Centaur of oblivion," he writes, "that task must be carried out by the definitive, Western civilization-state: Pallas Athena Italia." He derives his metaphor from a late-15th-century painting by Botticelli, Pallas and the Centaur, which depicts the Greek goddess of wisdom subduing the violence of the unruly and anarchic Centaur.
In Mr. Escobar's allegorical reading of the painting in contemporary political terms, he sees the pagan goddess as signifying "the power of Italian civilitas-the most cultured and influential civilization-state in the history of the West"-whereas the Centaur is seen as "an artificial perversion, the European Union." In this blending of pagan Greece with Renaissance Florence is to be found Europe's salvation: "Call it Firenze-Athena defeating Brussels," Mr. Escobar proclaims.
Mr. Escobar is not without allies. Throughout December, he toured Italy promoting the book under the aegis of a new movement, Italianinformazione. In Venice, he was delighted to receive a customized cap with the inscription "Make the Roman Empire Great Again" emblazoned upon it. In Turin, he was given a guided tour of the Olivetti complex, describing the global corporation as "one of the most extraordinary experiments in industrial humanism in history." It's not clear what Mr. Escobar means by experimental "industrial humanism," but it sounds ominously like the "hideous strength" of C.S. Lewis' fictional National Institute of Coordinated Experiments or something one might find in an Orwellian dystopia.
Mr. Escobar is less vague with respect to the philosophy to which he subscribes. Waxing effusive about the books he discovered in bookstores in Venice and Florence, he is excited by a "priceless" volume of writings by the Early Stoics Zeno, Cleanthes, and Chrysippus and by a collection of Italian humanist writings by Petrarch, Marsilio Ficino, Leonardo da Vinci, and Machiavelli. "Can Stoics and Humanists save Italy?" he asks.
Those who sponsored his speaking tour, Italianinformazione, seem to think so. Here's what its website declares:
Italy cannot remain on the margins of history: the multipolar world that is taking shape awaits its voice, its culture, its identity. It is time to awaken the collective conscience, to rebuild what has been destroyed, to put man, truth, freedom back at the center. Because only together can we restore meaning and dignity to the word 'information' and build a tomorrow worthy of our past.
Incredible as it might seem, Pepe Escobar and the folks at Italianinformazione seem to think that God is not part of the history of Italy. It seems that Man is at the center of Italian culture, whereas God doesn't even seem to have a place on the margins. The paganism of the Roman Empire is idolized, and the humanists of the late Renaissance are lionized; but the presence of Christ and His Church throughout the two millennia of the Christian era is studiously ignored.
It is as though the Madonna and Child have been airbrushed from the historical canvas, leaving only the periphery in its place. It's as though the divine has been removed from Dante's comedy, leaving only an infernal farce in its place. It's as though the ruins of the Colosseum are more alive than the Romanesque and Gothic edifices that edify the landscape across Europe.
Compare the dull deadness of the worship of defunct goddesses and the idolization of humanist Man with the living presence of Christ in Gothic architecture as seen by the great Christian visionary G.K. Chesterton:
The truth about Gothic is, first, that it is alive, and second, that it is on the march. It is the Church Militant; it is the only fighting architecture. All its spires are spears at rest; and all its stones are stones asleep in a catapult.... I could hear the arches clash like swords as they crossed each other. The might and numberless columns seemed to go swinging by like the huge feet of imperial elephants. The graven foliage wreathed and blew like banners going into battle; the silence was deafening with all the mingled noises of a military march; the great bell shook down, as the organ shook up its thunder. The thirsty-throated gargoyles shouted like trumpets from all the roofs and pinnacles as they passed; and from the lectern in the core of the cathedral the eagle of the awful evangelist crashed his wings of brass.
Chesterton's fighting defense of the Faith shows us that Christendom is alive. It is the living reality, the only living reality, that can save Europe. Imaginary goddesses are powerless to save her. As for anthropocentric humanism, it is deadly. It is the poison that intoxicated our fathers, causing them to fall away from the Faith of their own fathers. It leads to the worship of strange gods. It leads to the worship of Caesar and the desire to make the Roman Empire great again.
This is what Mussolini's fascists sought to do, and this is what Hitler's Nazis sought to do. Have we forgotten that Mussolini and Hitler idolized the grandeur of pagan Rome and the might of its empire ? Have we forgotten that they adopted the ancient open-handed Roman salute as the fascist and Nazi salute ? Have we forgotten how "hail Caesar" became "Heil Hitler"?
Those who would render unto Caesar the things that are God's are the enemies of all that is good, true, and beautiful. Even if they fight our enemies, they can never be our friends.
As for the only hope for the restoration and resurrection of Europe, we need look no further than the timeless words of wisdom of the great Catholic writer Hilaire Belloc:
In such a crux there remains the historical truth: that this our European structure, built upon the noble foundations of classical antiquity, was formed through, exists by, is consonant to, and will stand only in the mold of, the Catholic Church.
Europe will return to the Faith, or she will perish.
This article was originally published on Crisis Magazine.