Sunday, May 4, 2008

Exhausted Project


Check out a fascinating article at Time Magazine online - entitled "Is Liberal Catholicism Dead?"

The premise is that the baby-boomers were running out of steam until the sex-abuse crisis gave them a new rallying cry for Church reform. However, the writer states, quoting, among others, a Commonweal theologian, that Pope Benedict's visit has completely changed the dynamic. He also writes about the "looming demographic tsunami" of the Millennial generation, who do not have the "baggage" of the post-Vatican II generation. It is not all music to conservative ears, but it is a confirmation of what Cardinal Francis George so famously said a few years ago, that liberal Catholicism was an "exhausted project," because it had failed to give life - in marriage, vocations and religious life. Pope Benedict's call for unity and the healing of divisions in the Church here in the United States is going to be one of the great challenges of the next few years, and, in my opinion, that will only come when people stop regarding the institutional Church as the enemy: if the Church is the enemy, who is a friend?

5 comments:

Liz said...

I WISH it were truly an exhausted project, but there's a whole generation of priests and nuns trying to keep it on life support.

the owl of the remove said...

Yes - but look at the colour of their hair - they ain't young!

Rod F. said...

As I tell canon1753 all the time;
"There are no problems in the Church that can't be solved by a few retirements and some funerals" :)

Liz said...

Unfortunately gray hair or not they seem to be holding on with a pretty tight grip. And with the clergy shortage they don't even seem to be retiring...

Adrienne said...

I agree with Liz. The worse part is I'm "one of them", though only by virtue of my age (62)

It's looking like my death is the only way in which I will get to hear some decent music in church.