Picture of Mario Alexis Portella

Mario Alexis Portella

Mario Alexis Portella is a Minor Canon of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. He has a doctorate in canon law and civil law from the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome; he also holds an MA in Medieval History from Fordham University, as well as a BA in Government & Politics from St. John’s University. He is author of Islam: Religion of Peace?: The Violation of Natural Rights and Western Cover Up and Ethiopian and Eritrean Monasticism: The Spiritual and Cultural Heritage of Two Nations.
Paradoxically, the present-day misconstrued idea of secular individualism, which was fully developed during the Enlightenment, has its roots in early Christianity.
The surrendering individual rights was contingent on whether or not the legitimate political authority can effectively protect those from an aggressor — in our present-day case, the coronavirus.
The dilemma in today’s western culture is that in Europe there is no historical point of reference to the natural law as a founding principle of government.