JUST THINK OF THE MOB AS MICHAEL SCHIAVO:(via Qiao Yang):

Muslim-assisted suicide (On the Square, 11/08/05, First Things)

The intifida in France no doubt supplies some Americans with satisfaction in seeing the haughty French government taken down several notches. The temptation to indulge in Schadenfreude should be firmly resisted. What is happening in France and other parts of Europe is a tragedy of historic proportions. As I wrote in “The New Europes” (FIRST THINGS, October), we are witnessing the death of a continent. George Weigel addressed the many factors involved in “Europe’s Problem—and Ours” (FIRST THINGS, February, 2004), which he later developed in his bracing little book, The Cube and the Cathedral. [...]

What is happening in France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and elsewhere was not inevitable. The sage warnings of Bernard Lewis have gone largely unheeded. Samuel Huntington’s depiction of “the clash of civilizations” is not the last word, but to dismiss it as alarmist is certain folly. John Paul the Great persistently called for the re-Christianization of Europe, and Pope Benedict is no less committed to that goal. Europe, in the fine phrase of David Hart, is dying of “metaphysical boredom.” In the absence of a reason for being beyond the satisfaction of creature comforts, Europeans will continue to acquiesce in their own destruction. Call it Muslim-assisted suicide.

Father Neuhaus now has a blog over at First Things ... the term contained in the subject field of this email came from his eleventh-hour post last night.

Now I know how to best sum up what is happening in France and Europe in three words or less.

In the same post, he also dissuades us from enjoying the show.