Such images remain potent but they hinder real engagement with the questions of how Germany will use its current economic and political influence, and how far the EU can or should contain that power. For answers we should look back in time to when Germany was part of the Holy Roman Empire.

The legacy of two world wars has encouraged those outside Germany to fear its leadership as potential hegemony but the history of the Holy Roman Empire reveals a time when Germany was part of a wider pacific order.

And it is here that we see most clearly what the empire can tell us about Europe’s possible future. Its inhabitants generally identified with it positively because it preserved their own autonomy and ways of life. It cannot be a blueprint for today’s EU, because the social order which underpinned that local autonomy was also riddled with inequalities we would find abhorrent.

Yet it does suggest an alternative to the stark choice between the EU as a single, homogeneous superstate or fatally weakening Europe’s global position by fragmenting it into a mosaic of national states.

While there are those who insist that the Holy Roman Empire can help inspire a different European Union, we can do better than look to the example of Charlemagne. “Power was always multiple and plural. The management of daily life was devolved to more local powers,” writes Oxford historian Professor Peter Wilson, as though the Empire were the epitome of subsidiarity, unforced brotherhood and elective fraternity.

Try selling that notion to the 4,500 Saxons who were massacred in Verden, Lower Saxony, in the year 782. Charlemagne’s Reich was built on bloodshed, ethnic cleansing and horrific war crimes. He was the Hitler of his day, but history is a marvellous eraser of wrongs and redactor of truth.

The bishops of the Roman Catholic Church customarily issue guidance at election time, but one wishes they would respect the democratic intellect of British Roman Catholics. Man-made government is a necessary evil for the ordering of society, and, in the absence of the reigning King of Kings, it is for each Christian to discern the lesser evil. “How we vote is ultimately a matter of personal conscience,” said Bishop Noel Treanor, Bishop of Down & Connor, in his 2014 ‘Pastoral Reflection’ on the run-up to elections to the European Parliament.

The Christian task, he says, is “to influence the values that will shape future public policy”, observing that we are “called to inform our conscience”, which means “weighing up the position of each candidate and political party in the forthcoming elections and deciding how, in exercising our Christian responsibility to vote, we can maximise the common good”.

Of course, in issuing his guidance, Bishop Noel is mindful of Roman Catholic Social Teaching, centred around the right to life; the uniqueness of marriage between a woman and man; the promotion of justice, social inclusion and concern for the poor; and the pursuit of peace and reconciliation. Archbishop Paul Gallagher will have the same ‘goods’ in mind.

And therein lies the tension, for the political entity that is the European Union may promote peace, mutual understanding and reconciliation, and yet, in the pursuit of justice and equality, it negates the right to life and nullifies the God-ordained institution of marriage.

The real estate billionaire was speaking to the French conservative magazine Valeurs Actuelles, saying the German chancellor had made “a tragic mistake with the migrants.” "If you don't treat the situation competently and firmly, yes, it's the end of Europe. You could face real revolutions," Trump was quoted as saying, as cited by Reuters.

Merkel’s approval ratings have taken a nosedive and she has also received criticism from within her ruling coalition for her ‘open-door’ refugee and migrant policy, which saw an estimated 1.1 million asylum seekers arrive in Germany in 2015. Germany’s Economics Minister Gerd Muller stated in January that an estimated 8-10 million refugees could look to enter Europe over the coming years.

"The EU is like the orchestra playing on the Titanic," Renzi told Bloomberg, insisting his revitalized and reformed Italy had earned the right to play a leading role in shaping the bloc's destiny. "Today we have done reforms and we are in a position to say to EU partners: 'friends, we can change this wrong, bureaucratic approach'." Renzi has notably clashed with Brussels over Rome's demands for leeway on the EU's Stability Pact budget rules to allow him to revive the struggling Italian economy with tax cuts and growth-orientated spending.

In a reflection of Italy's more active diplomacy, Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni on Tuesday hosted a dinner for his counterparts from the bloc's six founding member states.

Billed as the start of a reflection on the EU's future, the ministers endorsed a statement reiterating their commitment to "ever closer union" while signalling that not all member states would be expected to pursue the goal.

At the time, he was a virtual unknown in Italian politics, but six months later he won the race to lead the centre-left Democratic Party and by February 2014, he was appointed Prime Minister. Riding high in the popularity sweepstakes at home, Renzi worked hard to earn Italy the respect of its European neighbours, especially after the embarrassments of the Silvio Berlusconi era.

He quickly ushered in reforms to reignite the country’s debt-stricken economy and has reduced the public sector deficit within less than two years in power, earning praise from and inspiring the confidence of Merkel.

The general secretary of the Scandinavian Catholic Bishops’ Conference, Signor Mirijam Kaschner said much of the interest is focused on the Pope himself. “Since he became Pope whatever he undertakes or plans, wherever he goes or whenever he signs a document, it is reported in the media up here in the north. That was never the case up to now,” Signor Mirijam wrote on the Cologne diocesan internet portal.

The one-day visit, on 31 October, will feature a joint ecumenical commemoration to mark the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. Pope Francis will lead the ecumenical commemoration in Lund alongside Bishop Munib Younan, president of the Lutheran World Federation, and the Reverend Martin Junge, federation general secretary, said a joint press release by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, and the LWF.

With the Western World and China in danger of going into deflation, major banks have already started to charge negative interest rates. Denmark’s central bank was a pioneer when it first cut its deposit rate below zero in 2012, and the trend has now spread to the eurozone and Japan. The Danish deposit rate now stands at minus 0.65 per cent. - Financial Times

Sweden has followed suit. The USA is set to follow. Major Bankers are calling for an abolition of money. It may be the only fix left, now that quantitative easing is failing. But no one is going to put their money in banks! Not if it means negative interest rates. Don't worry. Governments will rise to the occasion and soon will be making cash illegal. People will be forced to put their money in banks or the market, thus rescuing the central governments and the central banks that are incestuously intertwined with them.

Beyond that, cash is probably the last arena of personal autonomy left. It can be spent anyway one pleases, with no one watching. It can be hidden from the government to avoid taxes. It can be used to engage in transactions of a semi-legal nature. It has power that the government cannot control; and that is why it has to go.

The end result will be the loss of all autonomy. This will be the darkest of all tyrannies. From cradle to grave one will not only be tracked in location, but on purchases. Liberty will be non-existent.

However, it will be sold to us as an expedient and simplicity itself, freeing us from crime: Fascism with a friendly face. The real purpose of a cashless society will be total control: Absolute Total Control.

Perhaps the scariest consequence of all is that an individual can be "terminated" by a bureaucrat erasing his identity. Do not kid yourself, it will happen. Real "Mark of the Beast" stuff.

Rev 13:16-17 ‘And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark ...’ (Rev 13:16-17). I do not know if we are there yet; but if recent headlines are a clue, we may be very close.

"Major central banks have run out of ammo," says Ed Yardeni, chief investment strategist at Yardeni Research. Central bankers are trying to stabilize their economies and currencies as they navigate through the volatility of the global slowdown, market meltdowns and investors pulling cash out.

But many admit they don't know what to do next. "The world is an uncertain place, and all monetary policymakers can really be sure of is that what will happen is often different from what we currently expect," Stanley Fischer, the Number 2 at the US Federal Reserve, said in a recent speech. Fischer and other central bank leaders are arguably running out of new tools to turn things around.

President Obama’s statements on global warming are “dead wrong,” said Nobel laureate Ivar Giaever, who rejected the president’s claims that man-made global warming is causing climate change. “I think Obama is a clever person, but he gets bad advice. Global warming is all wet,” Giaever said in a speech entitled Global Warming Revisited he gave on July 1 to scientists from 90 countries attending the 65th annual Nobel Laureate Meeting in Lindau, Germany.

Giaever, who was born in Norway and became a naturalized US citizen in 1964, was one of three recipients of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1973. Although he endorsed Obama in 2008 along with more than 70 other Nobel-winning scientists, Giaever is now criticizing the president’s statements on climate change — particularly his 2015 State of the Union remark that “no challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change.”

“The biggest problem Obama faces is climate change? How can he say that?” Giaever asked. “I say this to Obama: ‘Excuse me, Mr President, but you’re wrong.’ He is dead wrong… the facts are that in the last 100 years we have measured the temperature, it has gone up 0.8 degrees and everything in the world has gotten better... We live better, we have better work, better health, better everything - but if we go [up] another 0.8 degrees, we’re gonna die, I guess,” he said sarcastically.

The Siddur Lev Shalem is “both more traditional and contemporary” in several ways, senior editor Rabbi Ed Feld told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday. He explained how it contains both the traditional Hebrew texts of prayers, as well as an updated translation in the modern vernacular and prayers tailored to fit life cycle events experienced by contemporary Jews.

Alongside a transliteration for those who do not speak Hebrew and a detailed commentary citing the meanings and origins of the various parts of the prayer service, Feld said that he and his collaborators sought to introduce an English translation that is both “more contemporary in its language and gender neutral.” The traditional siddur text is written in the masculine form.

In a statement announcing the siddur, Feld explained, “You can’t describe God as ‘awesome’ anymore; language and the way we use language changes, so each generation needs its own translation. This is the siddur for today’s prayers.”

• 84% of all Americans believe political leaders are more interested in protecting their power and privilege than doing what is right

• 80% believe the federal government is its own special interest primarily looking out for itself

• 78% believe that the Democratic and Republican Parties are essentially useless in changing anything, because both political parties are too beholden to special interests to create any meaningful change

• 76% of Americans agree with the statement that America cannot succeed unless we take on and defeat the corruption and crony capitalism in our government

• 74% see the biased and slanted coverage of the media as part of the problem

• 71% believe our government is not only dysfunctional, it is collapsing right before our eyes

• 70% believe the government in Washington does not govern with the consent of the people

• The majority – 56% – say they wish there were a third party with a chance of success to fight for their interests

• Only 15% say the “values and principals of my political party are so important that I strongly prefer to vote for the candidates of my party…”

Real change is what that the establishment fears most and fights hardest against. It is ultimately a losing battle. This, in fact, is a revolution.

Now top central bankers from Germany and France have called for even closer integration of eurozone economies in a bid to ward off the collapse of the European Monetary Union (EMU) and called for the formation of a Eurozone treasury. More of the bloc's financial policies should be dictated by Brussels, according to France's newly-appointed Francois Villeroy de Galhau and Germany's Jens Weidmann.

They wrote: "While monetary policy has delivered a lot of support for the euro-area economy, it cannot bring about long-lasting economic growth. More integration appears to be the most straightforward solution to restore confidence in the euro area." The bankers today said the survival of the single currency relies on the 19 member countries more closely integrating their economies and letting more decisions be made at a European level.

This would stop financial trouble from one country infecting others, and fix inherent flaws in the euro currency, in the opinion of the Mr Villeroy de Galhau and Mr Weidman. The pair tabled the idea of a European finance ministry and fiscal council to undertake more of the decisions that are made on a country-by-country basis.

And the policymakers urged more cross-border shareholding in companies, which they said would spread the burden of downturns, with losses from a troubled company then shared by investors in different countries. In a joint editorial, the two bankers also called for a further-reaching system of Europe-wide banking regulation and oversight.

Few have been spared. The share price of Barclays, BNP Paribas and Unicredit all slid around 5 percent, those of Deutsche Bank fell 10 percent, and the value of Greece’s three largest banks all slumped nearly 30 percent – from not very much to even less.

After the markets closed on Monday, Deutsche Bank took the unusual step of saying it had enough money to pay the coupons on some of its debt that are due in April. The German lender was essentially trying to convince the market that it isn’t facing a liquidity squeeze. On Tuesday John Cryan, Deutsche Bank’s chief executive, said his firm was "rock-solid", while Wolfgang Schaeuble – the German finance minister – told an audience in Paris that he has "no concerns about Deutsche Bank".

But if you’re explaining, you’re losing. Their comments haven’t stopped the cost of insuring European bank bonds from spiking. Lenders are also charging far more on the loans that they make to each other. And while these horribly familiar indicators of stress have not yet hit 2008 levels, the spirit of Lehman Brothers is looming over the market turmoil like Banquo’s ghost. Are investors right to be worried or have they “eaten on the insane root that takes the reason prisoner”?

On Wednesday, Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced at the United Nations that her office would be working in several American cities to form what she called the Strong Cities Network (SCN), a law enforcement initiative that would encompass the globe. This amounts to nothing less than the overriding of American laws, up to and including the United States Constitution, in favor of United Nations laws that would henceforth be implemented in the United States itself – without any consultation with Congress at all.

The United Nations is a sharia-compliant world body, and Obama, speaking there just days ago, insisted that “violent extremism” is not exclusive to Islam (which it is). Obama is redefining jihad terror to include everyone but the jihadists. So will the UN, driven largely by the sharia-enforcing Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the pro-Islamic post-American President Obama, use a “global police force” to crush counter-jihad forces?

After all, with Obama knowingly aiding al-Qaeda forces in Syria, how likely is it that he will use his “global police force” against actual Islamic jihadists? I suspect that instead, this global police force will be used to impose the blasphemy laws under the sharia (Islamic law), and to silence all criticism of Islam for the President who proclaimed that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.” What is a global police force doing in our cities? This is exactly the abdication of American sovereignty that I warned about in my book, The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America.

The Obama Department of Justice made it clear that it was exactly that when it distributed a press release last week announcing the “Launch of Strong Cities Network to Strengthen Community Resilience Against Violent Extremism.” In that press release, the DoJ complained that “while many cities and local authorities are developing innovative responses to address this challenge, no systematic efforts are in place to share experiences, pool resources and build a community of cities to inspire local action on a global scale.”