By Michael Pakaluk

Secretary of State Marco Rubio's speech two weeks ago at the Munich Security Conference has been praised for its conciliatory tone, and even for its putative revival of grand political oratory. Looked at from the point of view of recent papal commentary on Europe, its origin and destiny, Rubio's remarks were welcome, but incomplete. Yet he cannot be faulted for that; Europe has left him little choice in the matter.

Gabriel Marcel used to say that life in general has an existential character. You must seize the moment, or risk being like some sad ticket holder on the platform who just missed his train.

I think of Marcel's image when I look back to the debates, twenty years ago, over whether the new European Union should recognize its debt to Christianity in the Preamble to the EU constitution.

A "constitution" is just what the word says – as the great Jewish legal scholar, Joseph Weiler, warned everyone then – it is a people's "constituting itself." What they say in that moment fixes who they are, and what they will become.

The European Union had a chance to constitute itself as having a Christian heritage, and it deliberately turned against it, speaking instead in bland terms about its commitments to "humanism," "progress," and "transparency." Does it have any means now of going back to that missed train?

In his speech, Rubio reiterated several items from the "What We Want" section of the Trump administration's recent National Security Strategy, wrapping these up in warm fuzzies about Dante, Beethoven, Christopher Columbus, and American settlers from the old country:

• Europe must assume more responsibility for its own defense;

• practice fair trade;

• and not insist on a supposed "rules-based order," which cannot guarantee peace, and which is often manipulated to undermine U.S. interests.

• Furthermore, Europe must not continue to undermine itself, out of an overwrought guilt, through mass immigration policies that erode nationhood.

No diplomat there was surprised by the list. What they welcomed was Rubio's communicating, through all the warm fuzzies, that "we are in this together, because we have a shared heritage and civilization."

Yet here precisely was where Rubio was incapable of addressing directly the fundamental issue – again, because of Europe, not because of us. "We are part of one civilization – Western civilization," he said. But Western civilization is Christian civilization. "We are bound to one another by the deepest bonds that nations could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry."

Ah, yes. But Europe was incapable of acknowledging that history and heritage. It did not constitute itself with such language.

"The alliance that we want," the Secretary said, "is one that is not paralyzed into inaction by fear – fear of climate change, fear of war, fear of technology. Instead, we want an alliance that boldly races into the future. And the only fear we have is the fear of the shame of not leaving our nations prouder, stronger, and wealthier for our children."

Not quite. "We" (and especially "they") are evidently confronted with the fear of simply not having children – the "demographic decline" not mentioned by the Secretary in his speech. Europe, having turned away from Christianity, seems to have lost any boldness for having children at all. It suffers from hopelessness. For a deep treatment of this problem, see Pope Benedict XVI Saved in Hope.

I wondered as I was reading the speech: Exactly how clever is Rubio? Is he speaking with an awareness that he is a representative of a genuine nation, addressing an assemblage of nations which, except on one condition, has no real unity? Was his aim, without his saying it explicitly, actually to telegraph to the Europeans that their best hope for continued unity, as nations and among themselves, is unity with us – who, by contrast, are indeed a Christian nation, de facto?

Pope John Paul II wa...