The Courage To Be Catholic
Crisis, Reform And The Future Of The Church
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- £7.99
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- £7.99
Publisher Description
The Catholic Church in America is in a state of crisis. Yet few understand what the crisis really is, why it happened, or how the Church must respond to it. As no other commentator or critic has done, George Weigel situates the current crisis of sexual abuse and episcopal malfeasance in the context of recent Catholic history. With honesty and critical rigor, he reveals the Church's failure to embrace the true spiritual promise of Vatican II, a failure that has resulted in the gradual but steady surrender to liberal culture that he dubs "Catholic Lite." Drawing upon his unparalleled knowledge of how the Church works, both in America and in Rome, Weigel exposes the patterns of dissent and self-deception that became entrenched in seminaries, among priests, and ultimately among the bishops who failed their flock by thinking like managers instead of apostles. But, Weigel reminds us, in the Biblical world a "crisis" is a time of great opportunity, an invitation to deeper faith. Every great crisis of the Church's past, from the Dark Ages to the Reformation, has resulted in a period of reform that returned the Church-and its priesthood-to its roots. Weigel sets forth an agenda for genuine reform that challenges seminarians, priests, bishops, and the laity to lead more integrally Catholic lives. As he argues so persuasively, the answer to the present crisis will not be found in "Catholic Lite" but in classic Catholicism: a Catholicism that has reclaimed the wisdom of the past in order to face the corruptions of the present and create a strong future.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
American Catholics divided over the future direction of their church have managed to agree on one thing in recent months: much reform is needed in the wake of the clergy sexual-abuse scandal. Weigel, a theologian and papal biographer (Witness to Hope: The Biography of John Paul II), outlines the shape he thinks it should take in this incisive analysis. More than a problem of clerical misbehavior, he writes, the present crisis is rooted in the church's failure to be faithful to its own teachings. He traces the current woes to a "culture of dissent" that he says was allowed to flourish after the reforming Second Vatican Council (1962 1965), creating an internal schism in the church. After the "truce of 1968," which allowed church leaders to publicly oppose Humanae Vitae, the papal encyclical on artificial contraception, without fear of reprisal, he says it became clear that the Vatican would not support bishops who wanted to maintain discipline among priests and theologians. Weigel lays much of the blame for the sexual-abuse scandal at the feet of the American bishops, whom he chides for acting more like corporate managers than apostles. But his criticism also extends to Rome, where he points to deficiencies in canon law and the Vatican's communications strategy. As expected, Weigel dismisses such reforms as abolishing priestly celibacy and ordaining women priests, but he counters with practical solutions, including changes in the way bishops are selected. This book should stimulate discussion among both progressive and conservative Catholics.
