A STUDY OF CATHOLICISM AS AN INTEGRATING IDEA OF EUROPE WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO 20TH CENTURY ENGLAND

目前，欧盟在社会科学领域，尤其是政治学家和经济学家之间备受讨论。但一个相对鲜为人知的事实是，在两次世界大战之间的那些年里，有人坚持认为天主教会成为迅速瓦解的欧洲的综合思想。当时无论如何都不是教会宣扬其教义的有利时机，因为无疑是法西斯主义和共产主义这两种极权主义使欧洲人民心中充满了梦想和希望。此外，教会本身也受到其成员中世俗化的攻击。本研究对希勒尔·贝洛克、g.k.切斯特顿、克里斯托弗·道森和t.s.艾略特的社会观进行了同情的考察。它旨在阐明他们似乎共同的核心原则，以防止欧洲分裂，并恢复其统一。这些作家代表了以新教国家为荣的英国的天主教知识分子。所以他们首先要英勇地与对天主教根深蒂固的偏见作斗争。他们对宗教改革都有一个共同的理解，那就是宗教改革将英格兰与欧洲隔离开来，而欧洲是一个基督教世界。对他们来说，这基本上是一场悲剧。他们把世俗化的主要原因归结为新教，后者也被认为是欧洲解体的原因。面对基督教或新异教的选择，他们试图让人们相信，有必要回顾基督教世界本质上的中世纪观念的价值，这种观念在20世纪仍然有效。很明显，他们的共同想法源于天主教对教会的理解，即教会是神圣的，本质上是公共的，作为基督的圣体来圣化人们。

At present the European Union is much-discussed in the social sciences, esp. by political scientists and economists. But it is a relatively little known fact that there were, in the years between the two world wars, people who maintained that Catholicism would work as a synthesizing idea of rapidly disintegrating Europe. It was not a favorable time by any means for the Church to propound its message, for it was undoubtedly two totalitarianisms, i.e., fascism and communism, that filled the minds of European peoples with dream and hpe. Moreover, the church itself was being attacked by secularization among its members.The present research investigated with sympathy the social views of Hilaire Belloc, G.K.Chesterton, Christopher Dawson and T.S.Eliot. It aimed at elucidating the core principle which they seemed to share, to prevent Europe from falling apart, and to restore its unity. These authors represented the Catholic intellectuals in England, which has taken pride in being a Protestant country.So they first had to fight heroically the inveterate prejudices against Catholicism. They all had a common understanding of the Reformation, that it severed off England from Europe which was one Christendom. For them it was basically a tragic event. They attributed the main cause of secularization to Protestantism, which is also held to be responsible for the disintegration of Europe. Facing an alternative of Christianity or new paganism, they tried to convince people of the necessity of recalling the value of the essentially medieval idea of Christendom that still holds for the 20th century. It has become evident that their common idea derives from the Catholic understanding of the Church that it is divinely founded and communal in its nature, and works as a sacramental body of Christ to sanctify people.