René Girard’s Apocalyptic Critique of Historical Reason
Limiting Politics to Make Way for Faith
Stephen L. Gardner
University of Tulsa, Oklahoma
Th e ancien régime is the hidden defect of the modern state.1
— Karl Marx
Batt ling to the End: Conversations with Benoît Chantre is René Girard’s most
ambitious book since Th ings Hidden since the Foundation of the World,2 and it is bound to be his most provocative, too.3 Th at will be partly (but not only) because it is his most expressly Catholic, a defense of Catholicity as the true bearer of the “idea” or “meaning” of Europe, especially as articulated
by Benedict XVI in his controversial speech at Regensburg defending the ratio nality of Christianity (aimed at both Islam and Protestantism). Only aft er the European devastations and criminal complicities of the last century could this idea fully appear, Girard suggests, or the Catholic Church assume its proper “autonomy” in the political structure of Europe. Girard is convinced that the future of Europe—if it has a future—lies with a regenerate Church. And he is convinced that the future of history—if it has a future—lies with the “idea of Europe,” the “identity of humanity,” as embodied in the Church. Tragically
Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture, Vol. 18, 2011, pp. 1–22. ISSN 1075-7201.