And vice versa.

While church attendance figures are much higher in the US than in Western Europe, what does that prove? In itself, nothing at all. What is being inculcated, celebrated and even worshipped is very often a collection of economic, social, cultural and political prejudices that the participants have simply declared to be Christianity, despite their fanatically and even hysterically anti-Christian (and especially anti-Catholic) origins and content, which former is very often denied outright.

In Western Europe, by contrast, no country has on paper, and few have in practice, the American system of abortion on demand at every stage of pregnancy (for that, one has to look to America’s new best friends in Eastern Europe).

There are 10 sacral monarchies (11 if we include the Vatican), monarchy being an institution for which no purely secular argument can ever be constructed. National events are routinely conducted in the form and course of church services.

Church schools, maintained at public expense, are normal in many European countries, while at least broadly Christian Religious Education and (although this law is widely flouted) a daily collective act of Christian worship are compulsory in all British schools.

In Germany, the churches are actually the largest employers after the several tiers of government, with hardly anyone opting out of the church tax system, with the churches routinely providing numerous services of the kind that provoke uproar when suggested in the US under the rubric of “compassionate conservatism”, and with three tiers of government funding an annual Kirchentag (Catholic and Protestant in alternate years) from which no major political figure from Left to Right would dare be absent.

Anglican bishops sit as of right in the British Parliament, and while the House of Lords might one day be abolished entirely, no one seriously suggests that it might ever remain with only the bishops removed.

So one could go on.

But there was never a pro-life majority under the Republicans. Yet there is now, under a President who owes his position to those who on the same day reaffirmed traditional marriage in California and Florida. Who on the same day voted not to liberalise gambling in Missouri or Ohio. Who keep the black and Catholic churches (especially) going from coast to coast. And who include a large and growing section of the white Evangelicals.

No wonder that he has called the Freedom of Choice Act “not a high priority” (and we all know what a politician means when he says that) while more than hinting at Notre Dame that his high priorities did include the Pregnant Women Support Act. A Democratic initiative. Of course. Indeed, we might even say a Christian Democratic initiative.

Truly, America is becoming more European.

Thanks be to God.