John Allen, “the fair-minded nearly ubiquitous columnist and nearly only redeeming factor for the dissenting National Catholic Reporter” (according to Fr. Z.), will address the DOR Ministerium on May 24. His topic will be “The Future Roman Catholic Church.”
Allen’s talk would seemed to be based on his 2009 book, The Future Church: How Ten Trends Are Revolutionizing the Catholic Church. Amazon.com plugs it as follows …
What will the Catholic Church be like in 100 years? Will there be a woman pope? Will dioceses throughout the United States and the rest of the world go bankrupt from years of scandal? In THE FUTURE CHURCH, John L. Allen puts forth the ten trends he believes will transform the Church into the twenty-second century. From the influence of Catholics in Africa, Asia, and Latin America on doctrine and practices to the impact of multinational organizations on local and ethical standards, Allen delves into the impact of globalization on the Roman Catholic Church and argues that it must rethink fundamental issues, policies, and ways of doing business. Allen shows that over the next century, the Church will have to respond to changes within the institution itself and in the world as a whole whether it is contending with biotechnical advances—including cloning and genetic enhancement—the aging Catholic population, or expanding the roles of the laity.
This announcement lists the intended audience as “All lay ecclesial ministers of the Diocese of Rochester.”
oh joy
I have a good guess where everyone’s minds’ are going to go when he brings up “Taliban Catholicism”
I have read The Future Church and that moniker (IIRC) does not come up. He does briefly mention American “tribalism”, although I doubt if any honest person can deny such a thing exists. What he does mention prominently is the phrase “evangelical Catholicism” which I can approve of, and even “affirmative orthodoxy” which he does credit to Benedict XVI. I think this site is a great example of both of these.
No, I doubt Allen will bring up that phrase, as much because he has taken a lot of flack for it already. If anyone here goes to see him and it comes up, have better examples ready on hand. Off the top of my head, The Remnant, fisheaters.com, LifeSiteNews and (I know *I* will take flack for this…) perhaps RealCatholicTV are better examples. (I am not saying they are without merit, only that they match Allen’s description better than CF).
To clarify my last post, CF is a good example of “evangelical Catholicism” and “affirmative orthodoxy”. Not Allen’s description!
To segue two recent threads together, I think the “Clark Counter” is the only obvious *counter*example to the site’s “affirmative orthodoxy”. But as the diversity of opinion on the other thread demonstrated, that may be a feature, not a bug 🙂
thanks for that insight, Thinkling. snippets of the book are available at google books.
For the most part I like what I’ve read of John Allen. So I think I can overlook that “Taliban Catholic” thing and I’d assume he admits that it oughtn’t be applied to legitimate defenders of the faith. He wrote a great article recently about the connection between baseball and Catholicism. Here it is with Fr Z’s commentary (which always adds to the pleasures of reading):
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2011/04/fr-z-on-john-allen-on-%E2%80%9Ctop-nine-reasons-why-baseball-is-to-sports-what-catholicism-is-to-religion-%E2%80%9D/
Someone (perhaps Tom Peters) once referred to Ross Douthat of NYT as “crumbs of Elven bread in the wastes of Mordor”.
Or words close to that. I think the sentiment fits Allen just as well.
Attention seeking vain self love fest
They don’t know the future. Remember Garabandal. Remember Medjugorie.