Outpouring for Pope masks Europe's spiritual crisis
JWR ^ | 4-8-05 | Mona Charen
 

They stood in a line that stretched at least a mile, sometimes 30 abreast. Huddled in blankets in the evening cold, and gratefully accepting bottled water from priests patrolling the line during the hot daylight hours, the mourners — who wanted one last glimpse of Pope John Paul II — waited patiently for as long as 12 hours. The funeral of this modern pope has become the greatest Christian pilgrimage of all time. Accordingly, images out of Rome this week give the impression of a still-vibrant European Christianity.

And yet, this outpouring, fattened by the presence of 2 million Poles, is somewhat misleading. For while believers have not disappeared (particularly in the newly free countries of Eastern Europe), they have become a distinct minority in a continent that is decidedly post-Christian.

George Weigel, the theologian who produced John Paul II's masterful authorized biography "Witness to Hope," has a new slender volume out that addresses Europe's sickness of the soul. In "The Cube and the Cathedral," Weigel begins with a series of questions that limn the problem:
 

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