The Future Church

The Future Church A blog to discuss John L. Allen Jr.’s new book, The Future Church: How Ten Trends Are Revolutionizing the Catholic Church. You won't miss any postings to this new feature, if you sign up to receive an e-mail alert. The sign-up page is here. If you already receive e-mail alerts from NCR, click on the blue button labeled "Update My Profile" to add "The Future Church" to your list.
Revising the forecast on GMOs
Nov. 19, 2009
John L Allen Jr

Harold Macmillan, British Prime Minister in the late 1950s and early 60s, is famously credited with perhaps the best reply ever when asked by a reporter what might throw a government into tilt: “Events, my dear boy, events.”

His point that was that the best-laid plans often founder on the shoals of unforeseen events – an insight that applies to the fine art of futurology every bit as much as politics. A case in point comes this week from the Philippines, where the bioethics office of the Filipino bishops’ conference has announced that it will not oppose the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to solve a persistent rice shortage in Asia.

In The Future Church, I take up the subject of GMOs. I note that while the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Sciences has been strongly GMO-friendly, Catholic leaders in the global south have been more critical:

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Facing hunger, pope demands an end to 'opulence and waste'
Nov. 16, 2009
John L Allen Jr

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.

Calling hunger “the most cruel and concrete sign of poverty,” Pope Benedict XVI today told a special summit of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization that “opulence and waste are no longer acceptable when the tragedy of hunger is assuming ever greater proportions.”

The pontiff called for urgent action to combat world hunger, to protect the global environment and to rethink lifestyle choices in the West in his address to the Food and Agriculture Organization, which is based in Rome.

Benedict’s decision to visit the Rome headquarters of FAO, rather than to insist that participants in the summit travel across town to the Vatican to be received in audience, was seen as a sign of the importance the pontiff attaches both to the issue of hunger and to the institution of the United Nations.

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A blog entry about blogs
Nov. 12, 2009
John L Allen Jr

As a rule of thumb, I don’t respond when people go on-line to offer either criticism or praise of something I’ve written, or something I've said on TV or radio. I’ve already had my say, and anyway, the focus ought to be on the story rather than the story-teller.

Recently, however, I tossed a throw-away line about blogs into the middle of a column on an unrelated topic. That line made the rounds, and some people either still wonder what I meant (in which case they’ve asked for clarification) or they’re pretty sure they know what I meant (and some in that crowd want an apology.)

Since this subject indirectly connects to some of the themes in The Future Church, I thought I’d take it up briefly here.

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So much for the 'irrelevance' of the bishops
Nov. 11, 2009
John L Allen Jr

Passage of the Stupack Amendment in the House of Representatives, applying existing bans on federal funding for abortion to any new government health programs, has left pro-choice activists fuming. The primary villains of the piece, in their eyes, are the Catholic bishops of America.

The Associated Press has a story today quoting Eleanor Smeal of the Feminist Majority to the effect that the bishops “dictated” the outcome, and that it’s “totally inappropriate … blatant interference between church and state.” In a similar vein, Rep. Diana DeGette, a pro-choice Democrat from Colorado, said, “No one group should get to dictate the outcome of legislation in Congress … I don’t think one group should be given veto authority over what we do.”

One can obviously debate the merits of the bishops’ role, but for now I want to put this story to a different use: As an object lesson in the hazards of predicting the future.

Trying to get a handle on the future of Catholicism is, of course, the raison d’être of The Future Church, which makes the caution I'm about to deliver all the more topical.

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Read a review and an excerpt
Nov. 10, 2009
Dennis Coday

This is John Allen's blog and he'll be doing the color commentary here (to stretch even further the baseball analogy he began earlier this morning), but I thought I should alert readers of this blog that the review of John's book is the NCR Book Club selection this week.

Reviewing it is Jesuit Fr. John W. O’Malley, a church historian and professor of theology at Georgetown University in Washington. Here's the review: A new Catholic horizon.

There is also an excerpt of the book available here: The horizontal dimension

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An invitation to readers
Nov. 10, 2009
John L Allen Jr

I’m a big baseball fan, making me part of the core audience for TV’s “MLB Network” that launched last January. One of my favorite shows is called “Prime 9,” featuring a run-down of the nine best center fielders of all time, the nine biggest home runs, and so on. The show’s motto is, “Designed to start arguments, not settle them.”

If I had to choose a slogan for my new book The Future Church, I’d probably end up with something a lot like that.

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The Future Church with John L. Allen Jr.
Nov. 10, 2009
John L Allen Jr

A blog to discuss John L. Allen Jr.'s new book, The Future Church: How Ten Trends Are Revolutionizing the Catholic Church.

You won't miss any postings to this new feature, if you sign up to receive an e-mail alert. The sign-up page is here. The RSS feed is here

If you already receive e-mail alerts from NCR, click on the blue button labeled "Update My Profile" to add "The Future Church" to your list.

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