Talked to Any Young Catholics Lately?
I read with some bemusement this morning an editorial by Ken Trainor at US Catholic about young Catholics and the “Spirit of Vatican II”: World Youth Day, I suspect, attracts, inspires and/or meets the spiritual needs of those young people looking for a highly structured, hierarchical, institutionalized approach to spirituality, which is what the official version of the Catholic Church currently offers. It does not reach the many young people, Catholic and non-Catholic, who define themselves as “spiritual,” but are suspicious of institutional religion, often with good reason....
Read MoreHow Young Catholics Will Save the Church
Last night I had the pleasure to present a Theology on Tap talk at St. Boniface parish in Edwardsville, IL. Entitled “How Young Catholics Will Save the Church,” it was my own thoughts on the gifts young Catholics bring to the Church and how those gifts will help the process of renewal in the Church. While I didn’t have an opportunity to make a video recording of the talk (I forgot my tripod!) I did have an audio recorder going. As I warned the group last night, these thoughts are in no way systematically laid out; they are closer to an extended reflection based on my own...
Read MoreEvangelical Catholics: The Future of the Church
The indefatigable John Allen’s latest column examines the trend of “evangelical Catholicism” in the Church. He makes a number of points about this movement, which he describes as “a strong reassertion of traditional Catholic identity coupled with an impulse to express that identity in the public realm.” Perhaps most notably, and counter to the prevailing narrative, he points out that there’s a tendency in some circles to see evangelical Catholicism, with its strong emphasis on hierarchical authority and traditional doctrine, as a “top-down” project intended...
Read MoreReappropriating the Tradition: The Gift of Young Catholics to the Church
The November 2007 issue of Touchstone Magazine had an enlightening symposium on the current state of the Evangelical movement (with a promise of future discussions concerning Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and mainline Protestantism). The comments are frank and honest, pointing out the movement’s shortcomings as well as it successes. I was especially struck by this passage from Michael Horton: Sociologist Christian Smith has recently described American spirituality as ‘moralistic, therapeutic deism,’ and he says that this fits those raised in Evangelical churches as well as any...
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