Europe is a postmodern, post Christian, secular society, where the only believers are Muslim immigrants and a sprinkling of Marian devotees.
Poland remains a Catholic stronghold, but its Catholic identity is rapidly weakening, in the 2021 census, 71 percent of people identified as Roman Catholic, down sharply from 88 percent a decade earlier.
Roman Karkosik, a Polish billionaire, is trying to revive the ancient faith by building a 180 feet tall statue of the Virgin Mary, the second tallest Marian statue in Europe, second only to the colossal 332 feet monument of the Virgin Mary in the Philippines.
The devout billionaire spent $26 million on what critics call a monstrosity—money they argue would have been better used for housing, hospitals, and orphanages.
To capture young people’s attention, Karkosik might have been better off creating a holographic Virgin Mary that could twerk, sing, and rap.
The word “virgin” is anathema to the young that Christianity needs to reach, they should call the monument the “Virile Mary” or the “Voluptuous Mary”. Just saying.
Karkosik’s quixotic quest to revive a fading faith seems doomed: a silent, immobile stone statue stands as a monument to a moribund Catholicism.
