The Three Great Powers

Three World Powers: Anglosphere, Holy Roman Empire, Muslim Caliphate

Angela Merkel has recently noted, correctly, that Christianity is the most persecuted of the world’s religions. That persecution has been getting worse. John Paul II called the 20th century the “century of martyrs,” but it is worse than ever in the 21st.

One obvious reason why the persecution of Christianity is getting worse is that Christianity used to have some kind of state protection. When Korea executed every Catholic in the country, in the 1870s, French gunships sailed up the Han in response. Imperial Russia, Spain, France, and the Holy Roman Empire all saw themselves at most times as the protectors of the faithful; the entire Christian world, more or less, was ready to act together in a crisis like the Crusades.

Unfortunately, there are now more fissures in Christianity than there were in the Crusades. But look only at Catholicism. While no other candidate looks likely to replace the US and its imperial doctrine of liberal democracy on the world’s stage, if anyone is to do this eventually, a reconstituted Holy Roman Empire might be a leading candidate. Note that a successful empire must be held together by a governing philosophy or ideology, with some pretentions to being worldwide. Catholicism is certainly one such ideology. If the crisis of Christianity were to ever come to general public consciousness, it might serve as a trigger to some sort of unification, as it did once in the Crusades, or in the Age of Exploration.

Catholicism unites all of South and Central America, for a start—one of the most promising areas of the world in terms of future development. Add Mediterranean Europe: France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Malta, Croatia; and then realms of the old Holy Roman Empire in Central Europe: Austria and Slovakia, at a minimum. Ireland, Belgium, Poland, and Lithuania; the Philippines; East Timor; the Seychelles. These are all countries so overwhelmingly Catholic that using Catholicism as a state ideology should pose no social problems. We are not talking 50% plus one, but overwhelmingly Catholic countries.

It is one of the few possible groupings that seem capable of replacing the US and the Anglosphere in world leadership.

Interestingly, there is little overlap with the Anglosphere, either: only the Philippines, Ireland and Malta. Accordingly, it also seems conceivable that the two entities might some day reconstitute themselves as global rivals.

In addition, the revival of a Holy Roman Empire would naturally either prompt or be prompted by a revival of something like the Muslim Caliphate—a unification of the Muslim lands at least of the Middle East. Again, there would be no overlap.

China and India? Less significant, because neither really has a unifying ideology with universal implications. Russia and Orthodoxy might form another large unit, but not in the same league with these three.

Interesting fodder for a speculative fiction scenario. Probably nothing more. But then again, things can change suddenly...