John Allen's "The Future Church: How Ten Trends are Revolutionizing the Catholic Church "

[hedgehog]

I started to read this and ended up just skimming it. IMO, Mr. Allen made several mistakes.

1. He seems to have interviewed a lot of clerics, especially clerics on the fast track to Rome, and not many lay people. Thus, he has drawn his impressions of the Church's future from a very small and biased sample.

2. He makes the assumption that regardless of any other changes to come, the institutional Church will remain essentially unchanged and increasingly controlled from Rome.

3. He offers examples of large numbers of Catholics drawn to such events as the World Youth Day, without asking how many Catholics do not support such extravaganzas or even examining the beliefs of those who show up. For example, half a dozen kids from any particular parish may be glad to be sent out of town for a big party. That doesn't mean that they are actually enthralled with the stands taken by the hierarchy. Many (most?) who came out to cheer John Paul II as a symbol of the Universal Church went home and happily practiced birth control.

4. Mr. Allen places too much importance on anecdotes without seeing the larger picture. For example, the pastor at my local parish has many devoted followers. That's great, right? If I stopped there, you wouldn't know that he is heartily despised by the majority of Catholics in this town, over half of whom have migrated to other parishes or dropped out of active Church life. All too often, Mr. Allen accepts the views of a cardinal or bishop at face value without seeking further information.

As a result, Mr. Allen offers a version of what the hierarchy would like to believe is happening, and fails to see the larger picture. For example, Mr. Allen reports that the bishops of Africa tend to be very conservative with regards to the use of condoms, homosexuality, clerical celibacy, women priests etc. Mr. Allen doesn't seem to realize that no man who is a liberal on these issues is likely to become a bishop anywhere in the world. The majority of African Catholics may or may not hold these views, but I didn't see any documentation. Mr. Allen offers us a picture of the future Church as envisioned by those with a vested interest in the current structure. I suspect this book will be completely out of date within 10 years.