Again it is worth pondering the question of what would happen if the bubble were to pop and the next generations of Europeans suddenly experienced a decline in living standards because people in the rest of the world were to catch up with them, or because the debts accumulated through Europe’s expectations of ‘normal’ living standards piled up beyond acceptable limits. Enjoyable as it might be while it lasts, it probably goes without saying that the life of a mere consumer lacks any real meaning and purpose. Instead, it reveals a gap in human experience that every society in history has attempted to address and which something else will try to fill if our own societies do not apply themselves to it. A society that sells itself solely on its pleasures is one that can swiftly lose its attractions. That post-nightclub convert had experienced the pleasures but then came to the realisation they were not enough. A society that says we are defined exclusively by the bar and the nightclub, by self-indulgence and our sense of entitlement, cannot be said to have deep roots or much likelihood of survival. But a society which holds that our culture consists of the cathedral, the playhouse and the playing field, the shopping mall and Shakespeare, has a chance.

Still, there remains the unwillingness to confront these deeper issues. And each time it seems to come down to a sense of fatalism – in particular the sense that we have tried all of these things before. Why would we do all that again? This must be one of the reasons why appeals to Europeans to recapture their faith – even by Church leaders – are made not in the admonitory tones of the past but in a spirit of impeachment or even partial defeat. When Pope Benedict implored Europeans to behave ‘as though God exists’, he was acknowledging something that his predecessors were rarely able to accept: that some people today cannot believe and that the Church ought nevertheless to have some approach to them. Indeed, it was this appeal, more than anything else, that made the dying Oriana Fallaci a believer in Pope Benedict even whilst not being a believer in God. Elsewhere, the Pope appealed for the great gulf between religion and philosophy to be breached, specifically appealing that rather than being enemies, religion and philosophy must at least be in dialogue with each other.3