John L. Allen Jr., NCR senior correspondent, writes weekly on the goings-on in Vatican and in the church around the world.
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While Christians who move in the circles around Sant'Egidio may debate the right approach to other religions, Evangelicals who call themselves "Great Commission Christians" have no such hesitations. For them, explicit conversion to Jesus Christ is the name of the game.
| All Things Catholic by John L. Allen, Jr. | Friday, Sept. 8, 2006 |
| Vol. 6, No. 2.3 |
Bishop Javier Echevarr'a Rodr'guez, the prelate of Opus Dei, will be in the United States and Canada Sept. 12-28, visiting New York, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, San Francisco and Houston.
While the trip is billed as a routine pastoral visit, Echevarr'a's North American swing also amounts to a sort of victory following the The Da Vinci Code juggernaut, which went out with a whimper rather than a bang in May after the Ron Howard film was widely panned. (Writing in The New Yorker, Anthony Lane suggested that Opus Dei no longer needed corporal mortification -- just buy tickets and settle in for "2 and ½ hours of pain.")
Rather improbably, given the sinister way Opus Dei was depicted, all the hoopla surrounding the book and movie seems to have had broadly positive effects for the group. As part of this picture, many Opus Dei officials expect to see a "Da Vinci Code bump" in membership.
My wife Shannon is one of those film buffs upon whom Hollywood depends. Her idea of a satisfying weekend almost always involves a film, with the question of which film often being secondary. Thus it was that recently I was introduced to a new documentary called "This Film is Not Yet Rated," and discovered an unexpected Catholic angle.
Benedict XVI's weekend meeting with his Schülerkreis, or circle of formal doctoral students, in Castelgandolfo came and went without the major new statement on evolution that some had rather breathlessly anticipated.
It is no secret to regular readers of this column that I have a special affection for the Capuchins, who had the Christian charity to put up with me in grade school and high school in Hays, Kansas in the late 1970s and early 1980s. (No further testimony should be required for an eventual position attesting to their heroic virtue).
Citing my interview last week with Dominique Tassot, head of a group of European Catholic scientists and intellectuals critical of the theory of evolution, the London Guardian carried a piece this Monday asserting that Pope Benedict XVI is preparing "a fundamental shift in the Vatican's view of evolution."
Even setting aside the question of whether Tassot knows the mind of the pope, the claim still seemed over-hyped, since when I asked Tassot if he expects a statement from Benedict his answer was, "I think it's too early."
As September 15 approaches, the date Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone takes over as Secretary of State, speculation is mounting about who will be named his two key deputies: the Secretary for Relations with States, basically the Vatican's Foreign Minister, and the Sostituto, the official responsible for day-to-day administration of internal church affairs.
A story hit the wires this week that Pauline Fr. Gabriele Amorth, described as "the Vatican's exorcist," has declared that Hitler and Stalin were possessed, and that the Harry Potter books bear "the signature of the king of the darkness, the devil."
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