France is aflame, after decades of choosing suicidal unwisdom and stubborn denial of self-evident realities. Paris is convulsed by riots, while the lovely Town Hall of Limoges was just burnt to the ground. (I wonder if it had a “beautiful oak door”.)
It’s tempting to think of this as some sort of divine retribution — and it certainly does have much to do with Europe’s abandonment of its faith, both in God and itself — but it’s more fundamental, and, one might even say, more mechanical than that. The consequences of folly and sin are not punishment, any more than being burnt is “punishment” for putting your finger in the fire; the results are implicit in the decision itself.