Legacy MattersToday, I learned about Pietas, an ancient Roman virtue that teaches us reverence and gratitude for those on whose shoulders we stand from George Weigel.
Weigel, the biographer of Pope John Paul 11, writes "Is Europe Dying?"
By the middle of this century, if present fertility patterns continue, 60 percent of the Italian people will have no personal experience of a brother, a sister, an aunt, an uncle, or a cousin;[1] Germany will lose the equivalent of the population of the former East Germany; and Spain's population will decline by almost one-quarter. Europe is depopulating itself at a rate unseen since the Black Death of the fourteenth century
He calls it a crisis of civilizational morale for lack of pietas.
Posted by Jill Fallon at June 8, 2005 1:30 PM | PermalinkI've often wondered how family connections have changed in China over the last 20 years, since they started the one-child policy. A little digging this morning indicates that it hasn't had dramatic effects in most of the country, but that there is an entire generation of urban children who grew up without siblings. Fascinating experiment...
Posted by: Jeremy at June 8, 2005 10:31 AM