The Church as Founding Sacrifice of Modernity

What if modernity's original sin isn't colonialism or slavery, but something earlier and deeper—the looting of the Catholic Church? In this episode, I explore E. Michael Jones's claim that the Dissolution of Monasteries was a "looting operation" that financed the birth of capitalism, and I read it through René Girard's theory of the founding sacrifice: the idea that civilizations are built on blood they can't acknowledge. From Cain's murder of Abel to Romulus killing Remus to Brutus stabbing Caesar, the pattern repeats—and I argue that the Protestant destruction of Medieval Christendom fits the template exactly. The result is modern man: triumphant, progressive, moralizing, and haunted by a guilt he cannot name or confess. Nietzsche saw it: "God is dead, and we have killed him. Who will wipe this blood off us?"