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The Weigel Consulting Firm has a plan for the church EVANGELICAL CATHOLICISM: DEEP REFORM IN THE ZIST-CENTURY CHURCH By George Weigel Published by Bask Books, $27.99
All who care about the Roman Catholic church - including the conservative columnist and biographer of Pope John Paul ?, George Weigel - know the church is in trouble. It is a fragile bark, blown about the waves by the hostile winds of postmodern culture. A third of the crew has plunged into the sea and swum ashore, the remaining crew threaten mutiny, and the captain? Where is John Paul II, Weigel asks, when we need him most?
Weigel sees the ship as about to smash on the rocks of history, but he knows what has to be done. He has framed his prescription to gel with what is called the "new evangelization," yet a new book on Pope Francis excerpted in The Wall Street Journal April 13 suggests that movement, which has produced a lot of talk, is now out of breath.
On March 7, when as Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio the pope had his five minutes to address his peers in general congregation, the cardinals, wearied of hearing "new evangelization" for years without agreeing what it meant, perked up. Bergoglio skipped it and called on them to model the church on the humility of its origins.
Nevertheless, Weigel has produced a wordy tome, spelling out a "deep reform" movement that began with Pope Leo ???, was furthered by Pius XII, and has come into "sharper focus" by "two men of genius," John Paul ? and Benedict XVI. It is a challenge to "move beyond old left/right surface arguments . . . about ecclesiastical power, and into a deeper reflection on the missionary heart of the Church." That said, he denigrates progressive Catholicism for "watering down" Catholic truths, and traditionalism because...