{"id":80,"date":"2010-02-08T11:21:57","date_gmt":"2010-02-08T16:21:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=80"},"modified":"2010-02-11T17:09:08","modified_gmt":"2010-02-11T22:09:08","slug":"the-spend-of-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/the-spend-of-change\/","title":{"rendered":"The Church in the Future"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just finished reading the book I mentioned before The Future Church<\/em> by John Allen, Jr.\u00a0 His concluding chapter includes some discussion of how change happens in the church.\u00a0 Is the Church slow to change?\u00a0 Yes; as Allen writes<\/p>\n

The multiple layers of authority in Catholicism, its strong emphasis on tradition, and its deliberately self-referential ethos are all designed to ensure that the Church doesn’t march to the beat of a given culture or historical moment (428).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Should the church be open to new developments in the world?\u00a0 For instance, in the last one hundred years the world has made massive technological advancement.\u00a0 Recognizing value in technology, Pope Benedict XVI\u00a0says we need to use new means of communication to spread the gospel (Message of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI For the 44th World Communications Day, “The Priest and Pastoral Ministry in a Digital World: New Media at the Service of the Word”).<\/p>\n

Another area of development is Psychology.\u00a0 Psychology as its own field has only existed for less than two centuries.\u00a0 Psychology has much to say about understanding the human mind and development.\u00a0 We must listen to what psychology can teach us but psychology does not determine right and wrong.\u00a0\u00a0Psychology helps us understand human nature and why we do something.\u00a0 God determines what is good.<\/p>\n

Thus, we must stand up for what we believe in.\u00a0 Allen writes<\/p>\n

This is one sense in which Catholicism in the West, and especially in the United States, is actually more evangelized than evangelical.\u00a0 Too many Catholics have been evangelized by the psychology of secular politics, seeing the Church as a terrain upon which interest-group battles are fought, rather than as the common table of the Lord around which these differences dissolve.\u00a0 The tenor of much Catholic conversation these days might be expressed as an ideologue’s spin on the Lord’s Prayer: “MY will be done.” (454).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We need to be willing to revisit what it means to be Catholic.\u00a0 Common practices of individual confession, Eucharistic adoration, and Marian devotion have died off in a\u00a0society that doesn’t understand why we have such practices (437).\u00a0 In fact, many Catholics don’t understand these practices.\u00a0 That doesn’t mean they don’t have great value in our relationship with Jesus.<\/p>\n

How much do you understand about these Catholic practices?<\/p>\n

Peace,<\/p>\n

Fr. Jeff<\/p>\n

John L. Allen, Jr., The Future Church: How Ten Trends are Revolutionizing the Catholic Church<\/em>, New York: DoubleDay, 2009.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just finished reading the book I mentioned before The Future Church by John Allen, Jr.\u00a0 His concluding chapter includes some discussion of how change happens in the church.\u00a0 Is the Church slow to change?\u00a0 Yes; as Allen writes The multiple layers of authority in Catholicism, its strong emphasis on tradition, and its deliberately self-referential …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘The Church in the Future’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-1i","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions\/88"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}