Author: David R. Carlin Publisher: Sophia Institute Press ISBN: 1928832792 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 423
Book Description
Many Catholics blame Vatican II for the decline of the Church in America these past 30 years: traditionalists say it caused too many changes, liberals say too few. In this book, sociologist David Carlin shows that although Vatican II was the flashpoint for change in the Church, the roots of today's crisis go deeper than anything that happened at the Council. Basing his conclusions on sociological analysis rather than on theology or Church teachings, Carlin shows that in the 1960's the Church in America was weakened by the triumph of tolerance as an American virtue (which led Catholics to downplay their uniquely Catholic beliefs for the sake of unity) and then was battered by a culture that, seemingly overnight, had become boldly secularist and even libertine. Called by Vatican II to engage the culture in order to evangelize it, while pressed by the culture to downplay its Catholicity in the name of tolerance, the Church in America lost its way. The result? A widespread loss of Catholic identity; weakening of fidelity to Church teachings; Catholics abandoning their faith; and a diminishment of the Church's role as a moral voice in American society. Carlin's analysis has uncovered a problem that's older and even more dangerous for the future of Catholicism than the deeds that have lately thrust the Church onto the front pages. Indeed, says Carlin, the scandals are merely symptoms of this deeper problem that will continue to drain the Church's vitality long after the scandals are forgotten.
Author: Paul L. Williams Publisher: Prometheus Books ISBN: 1633883035 Category : Family & Relationships Languages : en Pages : 368
Book Description
This critical review of the Roman Catholic Church since the pivotal changes initiated in the 1960s by Vatican II paints a disturbing picture of decline and corruption. Dr. Paul L. Williams, a self-professed Tridentine or traditionalist Catholic, traces the various factors that have caused the Church to suffer cataclysmic losses in all aspects of its life and worship in recent decades. Williams illustrates the decline with telling statistics showing the stark difference between the robust number of clergy members, parishes, schools, and active church-going Catholics in 1965 versus the comparatively paltry number today. The author is highly critical of Popes Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis for steering the church so far away from its traditional teachings and for a lack of oversight that allowed corruption to fester. Symptomatic of this failure of leadership are the recent pedophilia scandals, the ongoing financial corruption, a gay prostitution ring inside the Vatican, and criminal investigations of connections between the Holy See and organized crime. This unflinching critique from a devoted, lifelong Catholic is a wakeup call to all Catholics to restore their church to its former levels of moral leadership and influence.
Author: David Carlin Publisher: Sophia Institute Press ISBN: 1622821696 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 423
Book Description
Behind the lurid headlines: why the Church in America declined. Forty years ago, three powerful forces capsized the Catholic Church in America. These pages detail those forces, and map the path that you and I - and our priests and bishops - must walk if we are to make the Church in America vigorous again.
Author: Malachi Martin Publisher: Putnam Publishing Group ISBN: Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 320
Book Description
History of the Roman Catholic Church and the papacy, discussing how the Church dealt with the tensions between its political power and its spiritual mission and the crisis the Church faces in the late 20th century.
Author: Peter Steinfels Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 9780743261449 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 454
Book Description
In this national bestseller, the most influential layman in the United States reports that the Roman Catholic Church in America must either profoundly reform or lapse into permanent irrelevance.
Author: Charles Morris Publisher: Vintage ISBN: 0307797910 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 529
Book Description
"A cracking good story with a wonderful cast of rogues, ruffians and some remarkably holy and sensible people." --Los Angeles Times Book Review Before the potato famine ravaged Ireland in the 1840s, the Roman Catholic Church was barely a thread in the American cloth. Twenty years later, New York City was home to more Irish Catholics than Dublin. Today, the United States boasts some sixty million members of the Catholic Church, which has become one of this country's most influential cultural forces. In American Catholic: The Saints and Sinners Who Built America's Most Powerful Church, Charles R. Morris recounts the rich story of the rise of the Catholic Church in America, bringing to life the personalities that transformed an urban Irish subculture into a dominant presence nationwide. Here are the stories of rogues and ruffians, heroes and martyrs--from Dorothy Day, a convert from Greenwich Village Marxism who opened shelters for thousands, to Cardinal William O'Connell, who ran the Church in Boston from a Renaissance palazzo, complete with golf course. Morris also reveals the Church's continuing struggle to come to terms with secular, pluralist America and the theological, sexual, authority, and gender issues that keep tearing it apart. As comprehensive as it is provocative, American Catholic is a tour de force, a fascinating cultural history that will engage and inform both Catholics and non-Catholics alike. "The best one-volume history of the last hundred years of American Catholicism that it has ever been my pleasure to read. What's appealing in this remarkable book is its delicate sense of balance and its soundly grounded judgments." --Andrew Greeley
Author: Russell Shaw Publisher: Ignatius Press ISBN: 1681490358 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 235
Book Description
Has the Americanization of American Catholics-their cultural assimilation, that is-been a blessing or a curse for the Church in the United States? Or has it been a bit of both? In American Church Russell Shaw takes a searching look at that question and reaches a disturbing conclusion. Cultural assimilation, which was ardently championed by churchmen like the great Cardinal James Gibbons of Baltimore around the turn of the last century, has undoubtedly conferred many benefits on Catholics. Their absorption into the secular culture of America, however, now threatens the Catholic identity of millions of faithful and of their institutions, such as schools, universities, and hospitals. Shaw does not offer this conclusion as an unsupported generalization. American Church is a richly documented analysis of a process extending over two centuries. Colorful characters and dramatic incidents abound, including the nineteenth-century intellectual feud between Orestes Brownson and the Transcendentalist convert to Catholicism Isaac Hecker, Pope Leo XIII's condemnation of Americanism, the anti-Catholicism that greeted the presidential campaigns of Al Smith and John F. Kennedy, and the numerous intra-Church conflicts that have divided American Catholics since the Second Vatican Council. In concluding his study, Shaw offers a number of thought-provoking suggestions about what the Church in America needs to do now in the face of an ongoing decline that is sapping its strength and may threaten its very survival.
Author: Edward Gibbon Publisher: Palala Press ISBN: 9781347421888 Category : Languages : en Pages : 498
Book Description
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Author: Stephen Bullivant Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA ISBN: 0198837941 Category : Ex-church members Languages : en Pages : 324
Book Description
In 1962, Pope John XXIII opened the Second Vatican Council with the prophecy that 'a new day is dawning on the Church, bathing her in radiant splendour'. Desiring 'to impart an ever increasing vigour to the Christian life of the faithful', the Council Fathers devoted particular attention to the laity, and set in motion a series of sweeping reforms. The most significant of these centred on refashioning the Church's liturgy--'the source and summit of the Christian life'--in order to make 'it pastorally efficacious to the fullest degree'. Over fifty years on, however, the statistics speak for themselves. In America, only 15% of cradle Catholics say that they attend Mass on a weekly basis; meanwhile, 35% no longer even tick the 'Catholic box' on surveys. In Britain, the signs are direr still. Of those raised Catholic, just 13% still attend Mass weekly, and 37% say they have 'no religion'. But is this all the fault of Vatican II, and its runaway reforms? Or are wider social, cultural, and moral forces primarily to blame? Catholicism is not the only Christian group to have suffered serious declines since the 1960s. If anything Catholics exhibit higher church attendance, and better retention, than most Protestant churches do. If Vatican II is not the cause of Catholicism's crisis, might it instead be the secret to its comparative success? Mass Exodus is the first serious historical and sociological study of Catholic lapsation and disaffiliation. Drawing on a wide range of theological, historical, and sociological sources, Stephen Bullivant offers a comparative study of secularization across two famously contrasting religious cultures: Britain and the USA.
Author: Marian E. Crowe Publisher: Lexington Books ISBN: 9780739116418 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 424
Book Description
"Although many literary critics assert that the Catholic novel is in decline, Aiming at Heaven, Getting the Earth: The English Catholic Novel Today argues that there is still vitality in the English Catholic novel at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Marian Crowe relates this fiction to recent developments in the post-Vatican II Church and elucidates intriguing possibilities for future Catholic fiction. In addition to discussing the theory and history of the Catholic novel, the book provides an in-depth study of four contemporary English Catholic novelists."--BOOK JACKET.
Author: David R. Carlin
Author: Paul L. Williams
Author: David Carlin
Author: Malachi Martin
Author: Peter Steinfels
Author: Charles Morris
Author: Russell Shaw
Author: Edward Gibbon
Author: Stephen Bullivant
Author: Marian E. Crowe