Christmas is a season of giving, and in a rather self-serving application of that spirit, this week I’m asking readers to give me something. Specifically, I’m asking for reactions to my list of the 10 most important “mega-trends” in Catholicism today, which appears below.
My next book is titled “The Upside Down Church,”
(Editor’s comment – This title is perhaps an unconscious nod to an article by that title written by Fr. Robert Maloney in America)
a sort of sneak preview of Catholic history in the 21st century. I outline a series of mega-trends which I believe are turning the church on its head, especially with respect to the dominant paradigms in the 40-plus years since the close of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). In order for that analysis to hold water, however, I have to identify these mega-trends correctly.
By “mega-trend,” I mean a deep impulse shaping Catholic thought and life at the universal level, a sort of “tectonic plate” whose shifts lie beneath the fault lines and upheavals of the present. I have in mind not single issues, but currents of history which cause some issues to rise in importance and others to fall. A mega-trend, by the way, does not have to be specifically Catholic, but rather something that affects Catholicism in a significant way. For example, the rise of Islam, especially its more radical forms, certainly belongs on the list.
My request is this: Read this list, and ponder it. Are there major forces I’ve neglected? Are there items here that don’t belong? Does this list correspond with your own sense of what’s happening in the church?
Some readers may want to react using the “comments” box below, which will allow a conversation to develop in this space. Others may not want to share their thoughts with the rest of the world, but wouldn’t mind passing them along to me. If that’s the case, address them to jallen@ncronline.org [1]. Either way, I will be grateful.
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