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Evangelical Catholicism

Deep Reform in the 21st-Century Church

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1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
The Catholic Church is on the threshold of a bold new era in its two-thousand year history. As the curtain comes down on the Church defined by the 16th-century Counter-Reformation, the curtain is rising on the Evangelical Catholicism of the third millennium: a way of being Catholic that comes from over a century of Catholic reform; a mission-centered renewal honed by the Second Vatican Council and given compelling expression by Blessed John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.
The Gospel-centered Evangelical Catholicism of the future will send all the people of the Church into mission territory every day — a territory increasingly defined in the West by spiritual boredom and aggressive secularism. Confronting both these cultural challenges and the shadows cast by recent Catholic history, Evangelical Catholicism unapologetically proclaims the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the truth of the world. It also molds disciples who witness to faith, hope, and love by the quality of their lives and the nobility of their aspirations. Thus the Catholicism of the 21st century and beyond will be a culture-forming counterculture, offering all men and women of good will a deeply humane alternative to the soul-stifling self-absorption of postmodernity.
Drawing on thirty years of experience throughout the Catholic world, from its humblest parishes to its highest levels of authority, George Weigel proposes a deepening of faith-based and mission-driven Catholic reform that touches every facet of Catholic life — from the episcopate and the papacy to the priesthood and the consecrated life; from the renewal of the lay vocation in the world to the redefinition of the Church's engagement with public life; from the liturgy to the Church's intellectual life. Lay Catholics and clergy alike should welcome the challenge of this unique moment in the Church's history, Weigel urges. Mediocrity is not an option, and all Catholics, no matter what their station in life, are called to live the evangelical vocation into which they were baptized: without compromise, but with the joy, courage, and confidence that comes from living this side of the Resurrection.
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    • Kirkus

      December 15, 2012
      A call for pride, sincerity and depth in Catholic life and community. Weigel (Faith, Reason and the War Against Jihadism, 2007, etc.) falls short in this sweeping, yet shallow call for "deep reform" in the Catholic church. The author argues that Counter-Reformation Catholicism, after a three-century reign, has been slowly dying in the face of modernism. The church of today had its genesis with the election of Pope Leo XIII in 1878, who began reforms that led to the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. As the Catholic church grapples with a rapidly changing world, Weigel writes, it must finally shed the remnants of Counter-Reformation Catholicism and fully embrace Evangelical Catholicism, "a counterculture that seeks to convert the ambient public culture by proclaiming certain truths, by worshipping in Spirit and in truth, and by modeling a more humane way of life." The bulk of Weigel's book examines how this new Catholicism can be applied to the episcopate, priesthood, liturgy, laity, etc. The author makes many important points, and his call toward a deeper spirituality and sense of mission in Catholic life is laudable, but he is stunningly silent on many important issues. Although he does not ignore the clergy sex scandals of recent decades, he glosses over them. "Fidelity and deeper conversion to Christ...not 'reforms' " are called for to solve such problems, an answer few would accept as practical or comprehensive. Likewise, he does not address the drastic shortage of clergy and gives little thought to the emerging role of the third-world church and their particular needs and points of view. Weigel's call for reform is based in attitude more than in structure, which may fall flat with many readers interested in "deep Catholic reform." Long on evangelism, short on reform.

      COPYRIGHT(2012) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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