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.
Mar. 04, 2010

Without really trying, I’ve generated controversy in some quarters by coining the phrase “Taliban Catholicism” to describe a psychological tendency (as opposed, let the record be clear, to any actual person or group) in today’s church. I understand it as the equal-and-opposite extreme from what George Weigel has usefully described as “Catholicism Lite,” meaning a kind of supine assimilation to secularism.

“Taliban Catholicism,” then, is an exaggerated allergy to anything that smacks of secularism, liberalization, or corruption by modernity – an angry form of the faith that knows only how to excoriate and condemn.

Of course, Catholicism hardly enjoys a monopoly on the “Taliban” instinct, which is more akin to a potential distortion within any religious system. In some ways it may be especially virulent within ultra-traditional and nationalist strains of Orthodoxy, as a recent “Patriarchal and Synodal Encyclical” from Archbishop Bartholomew of Constantinople makes clear.

Feb. 01, 2010

Bob Dole once quipped that being Vice President of the United States is a great gig: “It’s indoor work, and there’s no heavy lifting.” For journalists, predicting the future is much the same – it sounds terribly smart, yet it requires no real effort because there’s no way to be wrong, at least at the time the prediction is made.

Later on, however, the bills come due if your forecasts turn out to be off the mark. The only way to save face is to get ahead of the curve, before someone else calls attention to your mistakes. Hence one function of this blog is to acknowledge when things don’t seem to be developing in quite the way I suggested in The Future Church, and recent events in Italy suggest just such a case with regard to the Catholic Church and immigration.

In a nutshell, I opined that the future might see a growing divide between European and American bishops on immigration, with the Americans becoming staunchly pro-immigrant and the Europeans more cautious. The basic reason is that a disproportionate share of new immigrants to the United States are Hispanic, thus Catholic, while in Europe they tend to be from the Middle East and North Africa, hence Muslim.

Jan. 30, 2010

In The Future Church I identify “evangelical Catholicism” as a key trend, defined as a strong reassertion of traditional Catholic identity coupled with an impulse to express that identity in the public realm. At a purely descriptive level that claim is a no-brainer, because the evidence is crystal clear – from revival of the old Latin Mass, to new demands that pro-choice Catholic politicians be brought to heel.

The $64,000 question isn’t whether the trend exists, but what to make of it.

Jan. 29, 2010

All over the world, children play some version of the game “spin the bottle.” In the Catholic church, there’s an analogous indoor sport we might call “spin the pope.” The rules are that when a papal edict appears, the players are stuck with the language of that decree, and have to find some way to make it say what they want it to say.

Jan. 27, 2010

Recently I devoted both my “All Things Catholic” column and an op/ed piece in The Forward, a national Jewish weekly, to Pope Benedict XVI’s Jan. 17 visit to the Great Synagogue in Rome. Among other things, I suggested that the pope’s speech that day reflected a broad thrust in his approach to inter-faith relations, away from specifically theological dialogue in favor of social, cultural and political cooperation.

Like usual, those pieces drew a wide variety of responses.

Jan. 13, 2010

Ecclesiastes may want us to believe there’s nothing new under the sun, but according to a UN report issued this week, not so. Rapid aging of the human population, the report asserts, is a demographic trend of mammoth consequence, and one “without parallel in the history of humanity.”

That’s a bold claim, especially since the modern science of demography really didn’t take shape until the 18th century. But without doubt, today’s demographic landscape – dominated by declining birth rates and rapid aging across the planet – represents a startling inversion of the assumptions that have long dominated the field, the sound-bite version of which was the “population bomb.”

If the old demographic worry was relentless population increase, today’s anxieties cut in exactly the opposite direction.

Jan. 05, 2010

Globally speaking, the most serious new tension dividing Jews and Catholics is Pope Benedict XVI’s decision just before Christmas to advance the sainthood cause of Pius XII, the wartime pontiff whose alleged “silence” on the Holocaust has long been a subject of polarizing historical debate.

On the ground in Jerusalem, however, Jewish/Christian animus has a much more prosaic cause: Spitting.

Recently, the Jerusalem Post carried a piece quoting Rabbi David Rosen, a veteran of Catholic/Jewish dialogue, acknowledging that incidents of ultra-Orthodox Jews spitting at priests, nuns and other Christian clergy is “a part of life” in Jerusalem. Such incidents have been occurring for the last twenty years and are now on the rise, according to the story, although they appear to be limited to Jerusalem.

The piece quoted a Texas-born Franciscan, Fr. Athanasius Macora, who heads the Christian Information Center inside the Jaffa Gate, who said that he’s been spat upon by ultra-Orthodox Jews as much as fifteen times in the last six months – not only in the Old City, but also outside his Franciscan friary.

Dec. 22, 2009

Pope Benedict XVI dedicated his recent message for the Jan. 1 “World Day of Peace” to the environment, under the title of “If you want to cultivate peace, protect creation.” Though the pope obviously didn’t choose that theme to give The Future Church a boost, it does lend some additional heft to the eighth major trend I identified shaping the Catholic future: Ecology.

Whenever the pope issues a document, church leaders around the world generally rush to praise its wisdom, and that’s certainly the case this time around. Cardinal Francis George, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, today said, “Pope Benedict seamlessly weaves together concerns for peace, poverty and care for creation. He calls on us to act to protect both human and environmental ecology for the two are inseparably linked.”

Such statements could suggest uniform support in the Catholic world for the pope’s environmental push, but anyone who knows Catholic realities understands that opinion in the church is usually anything but uniform.

Dec. 16, 2009

Two weeks ago, I wrote about a draft bill in Uganda’s parliament which would decree the death penalty for homosexuality under some circumstances, and would also establish prison terms for anyone who fails to report homosexuals to the authorities. Those provisions have drawn wide international criticism, even from fairly conservative Christian leaders who clearly sympathize with the aim of promoting faithful heterosexual marriage, such as Rick Warren and several signers of the recent "Manhattan Declaration."

The latest development is that in mid-December, the Interreligious Council of Uganda, the country’s major inter-faith body – one which includes the Catholic Church – came out in support of the bill.

Dec. 09, 2009

I’m in New York this week, with part of the agenda being to tape a panel discussion for an upcoming CNN special on “Faith and Money.” The program is hosted by Christine Romans, and is scheduled to air on Dec. 19. (Coincidentally, that’s the last day of Hanukkah this year.)

I don't identify money management as a self-standing trend in The Future Church, but it's hard to imagine much of a future for any religious enterprise if it's broke. As the saying goes, the love of money may be the root of all evil ... but you sure do miss the money when it's gone.

The CNN program covers a vast range of topics, from the economics of Mega-churches (a segment driven by an interview with Joel Osteen) to the effect of church money on American politics. I was part of a panel devoted to trying to gauge the impact of the economic crisis on religious groups around the country.

Without stealing the show’s thunder, I can briefly summarize three points I tried to make:

Nov. 30, 2009

In a surprise result, Swiss voters yesterday approved a constitutional ban on the construction of minarets, the tall spires on Islamic mosques from which the call to prayer is issued five times a day. The initiative was approved 57.5 to 42.5 percent by some 2.67 million voters. Only four of 26 cantons, or states, opposed it, granting the double approval that makes it part of the Swiss constitution.

The ban had been proposed by far-right political forces, and was denounced in the run-up to the vote both by the government and by a wide cross-section of religious leaders – including the Catholic bishops’ conference in Switzerland, which had issued a statement warning that “fear is a poor counselor.”

Passage of the measure is considered the clearest expression to date of mounting anti-Islamic backlash in Europe, fueled by rising levels of immigration. Though counts vary, some analysts predict the overall Muslim population will level off at 15 percent of the European total.

Nov. 25, 2009

President Barack Obama’s red-carpet welcome this week for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the first state visit of Obama’s presidency, is obviously calculated to deepen ties with one of the world’s emerging superpowers. With a massive population of 1.2 billion, India has always been a potential global titan, but today it’s increasingly exploiting that capacity.

An under-appreciated point about India’s rise, however, is that it is also home to some of the impressive growth in Christianity anywhere in the world. That includes the Catholic church, which means that as the 21st century rolls on, India is positioned to become an important player not just in geopolitics but Catholic affairs too.

Here’s some background on Catholicism in India, drawn from The Future Church.

Nov. 23, 2009

Pope Benedict XVI and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, held a brief tête-à-tête in Rome on Saturday, amid the latest in a seemingly endless series of crises in relations between the Catholic church and the Anglican Communion. This time, the issue was the Vatican’s decision to create special structures for traditionalist Anglicans wishing to become Catholics.

In the main, both Benedict and Williams reaffirmed their commitment to good ties, even if Williams did gently chide the pontiff for what Williams saw as a failure to consult Anglican leaders more thoroughly in advance of the recent move. (In an address at the Jesuit-run Gregorian University, Williams also defended the ordination of women and suggested that differences over such matters “may not be as fundamentally church-dividing as our Roman Catholic friends generally assume.”)

This weekend’s encounter provides an opportunity to step back and contemplate the state of things between Anglicans and Catholics. To be sure, Catholicism isn’t General Motors or Microsoft – but if it were, a bean-counter in Rome might put down his eyeshade to ask: Why do we bother?

Nov. 19, 2009

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:

Nov. 16, 2009

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.

Nov. 12, 2009

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.

Nov. 11, 2009

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.

Nov. 10, 2009

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

Nov. 10, 2009

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.

Nov. 10, 2009

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.