Quick Reviews: "This is the End", "Man of Steel", "The Lone Ranger" and "Ken Burns: Prohibition"

I've seen a bunch of movies this summer, but have chosen not to review them up to now.  Consider this a catch up on some of the more recent films out right now.
 

This is the End

"R" rated comedies are not usually high on my list of must sees, but I took a chance on this one.  I rarely walk into the theater knowing nothing about the movie being screened, but there wasn't anything else out that week, so I figured I'd take the chance.

Bad move.

The premise and set up were actually intriguing.  The main actors, among Hollywood's Young Turk comedians and thespians, all play themselves, or at least play parodies of their public image.  They're self absorbed, stoner elitists living in their insulated pleasure domed ivory towers.  Seth Rogen and Jay Baruchel go to a party at John Franco's new house, along with a host of other young stars like Emma Watson, Michael Cera and Rhianna, all engaging in the excesses associated with show business types on their time off, when, you guessed it, the Rapture/Apocalypse happens.  Actually, so far so good.  But then, after a completely over the top sequence in which most of Hollywood's young stars are not simply "left behind," but gruesomely swallowed into the fires of Hell (again, I'm not into gore, but the movie still had me) the film settles into what seemed like an interminable middle section where six survivors try to figure out what happened and how they are going to survive.  It never goes anywhere interesting, and begins to feel claustrophobic and self referential, like, as some other critics have observed, this was some big inside joke that only they a few other peeps in the biz are in on (in fairness, this was not the majority opinion; This is the End was very well received by critics).

I would chalk this up as a missed opportunity, because the beginning, as I said, sets things up nicely, and the end, which goes inexplicably feel good in some ways (though still a bit bloody), wasn't that bad.  But the entire middle was a muddle of hit and mainly miss gags that left me bored. There was an opportunity to comment of religion, race relations, the objectification of women and the various anxieties effecting twenty and thirty-something men, but it never really does, or does so in the most superficial ways imaginable.

I've read and seen reviews (after I saw this mess) trying to explain the deeper meaning that Rogen and Seth Goldberg (writers and first time directors) were trying to say about male friendships and fame versus reality, but I didn't see it.  I admit that this is at least in part a generational issue (I'm just too old for this kind of stuff), but I think that it's more than that.  Yes, there is gore (this is meant as a "horror-comedy"), plenty of profanity and humor of the sexual and scatological variety, but who cares?  Just because you repeat a "dirty" word or phrase a bunch of times doesn't make it funny.  You may not have always agreed with Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor or George Carlin (I certainly didn't), but the profanity that they used wasn't the point.  It was meant to get your attention so you would hear what they were really trying to say.  And no matter where you landed on the issues being explored, you couldn't deny that they were very funny men.  I know that this was meant as a bit of self parody and all, but maybe these guys really don't have as much to say as they think.  Maybe they are a bit more self absorbed than they want to admit.

Man of Steel

Now that Batman was been revamped for the screen it's time for the Superman legend to get it's day in the multiplexes.  The bottom line: this wasn't a terrible movie, but it simply wasn't all that compelling, either.  And all the Christ symbolism was laid on mighty thick.  I thought telling the story in a non linear style was good, and how they brought Clark Kent / Superman and Lois Lane together was inventive (though they sort of conflated the Lois and Jimmy Olson characters together, which seemed odd).  Superman is unbreakable, but not un-bendable, and he does have to exert great effort to accomplish some of his more spectacular feats, which was refreshing. Again, I didn't hate it, I just wasn't sure how necessary it was.

I'm having a hard time thinking of things to say about Man of Steel (I saw it about two weeks ago) not so much because of the time laps but because it was such a vanilla experience.  Fr. Barron gave an interesting commentary on it, so I'll leave him to say the rest.

The Lone Ranger

Back when I was a kid there was an attempt to bring the Lone Ranger legend to screen by way of a big budget spectacle, and it flopped epically.  From the reviews and box office receipts of this latest attempt, from the same people who brought us the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, this concept must be cursed to failure.  

In spite of the title, this time out the "Faithful Indian Guide" Tonto is actually the main character of the story (actor Johnny Depp gets top billing to drive the point home).  Borrowing heavily from the 1970 Dustin Hoffman film Little Big Man, the story is told in flashback by Tonto as an old man in 1933 San Francisco.   There are other thefts from that earlier film, including one of its most famous lines, but in the end it's irrelevant.  They could have taken the best ideas from every western of the last seventy years and it wouldn't have saved this thing.

In the spirit of the aforementioned This is the End, they started with a good idea but this time, instead of going no where with it, director Gore Verbinski moves things along briskly, though the wrong direction.  The angle here is that The Lone Ranger (Armie Hammer) is an amiable dunce.  He's an earnest lawyer going west to bring law and order but is totally clueless.  He and Tonto form a reluctant partnership, which Tonto is constantly trying to wiggle out of after saving Kemosabe's skin time and time again.  The movie is full of humorous moments, which is great, but these are juxtaposed by truly gruesome scenarios. For me the two things just didn't mix.  I think if they had stuck with the Lone Ranger as well meaning dimwit motif, made this a smaller movie; more like a straight satire, it could have worked.  But, without a doubt, they want to make a series out of this, so that was never going to happen.  We get hearts getting torn out (and eaten), decapitations and terrorized children.  It's PG-13, so there is no gore to speak of, and the most extreme violence happens off screen, but it still makes for a very heavy experience that weighs down the whimsical movie trying to get out.    

Ken Burns: Prohibition

Ken Burns has reached a point in his career where I think that he is blissfully incapable of making a bad documentary.  2011's Prohibition, directed with Lynn Novick, is not ground breaking like The Civil War or Baseball, but it doesn't need to be.  His style is familiar, true, but he has a way penetrating a story and making distant history and the people who made it seem contemporary, giving us an empathy with the players, not just a knowledge of dates and events.  We come to understand better why things happened the way they did, not simply that they did.

In the case of Prohibition he uses the first of its three parts to trace the history of alcohol use and of the temperance movement in the United States, going back to colonial times.  While the clear conclusion of the series is that Prohibition was a great mistake, we understand that the problems of alcoholism and how drinking habits had evolved in the States over the course of the 18th and 19th centuries lead to real problems and legitimate concerns among the public.  Those in the temperance movement were not simply moralistic busy bodies, but were often victims of the ravages of alcoholism and saw the need to do something about it.

Where things go off the rails, for Burns, is when the temperance movement very early on changes from a movement seeking people's voluntary abstinence from strong drink to one pushing for the total ban on its manufacture and sale.  In the end the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that made the manufacture and sale of alcohol a crime, and the Volstead Act that detailed it's enforcement, were simply unenforceable.  Rather than alleviating the problems of alcoholism and crime both were exacerbated.

A theme that is repeated again and again throughout the series by the various interviewees as to why prohibition failed is that "you can't regulate morality."  There is something true to this, but something incredibly false as well.  All laws are somehow a reflection of the moral code of the people, if not of God.  It's not a question of if we regulate morality, but rather how we regulate it.  As was pointed out in the movie, it was harder to get a drink after the repeal of the 18th Amendment than it was during prohibition.  Milton Friedman (not featured in the film) once told the story that he went to a former speakeasy with a friend the day the law changed in 1933 for a drink and were informed that they couldn't serve alcohol because they hadn't been issued a liquor license yet.  With regulation, as opposed to an outright ban, governments can control and manipulate better the actions of the people.  And we should not kid ourselves, moral persuasion is a tool used by authorities to get their point across.

Smoking, for instance, has dramatically decreased in the last fifty years, yes because we know more about the heath risks involved, but also because of the heavy taxes levied on tobacco products.  There are also laws restricting where a person may smoke, with some municipalities mulling laws prohibiting smoking even in private residences.  The government has also used public service campaigns that present smoking as wrong.  Scientific and medical evidence may be used to make the case, but these are not cold appeals to logic, but very deliberate framing of the issue in moral terms.  A message is being sent; smokers are outside, literally and figuratively, the mainstream of social behavior and the practice must be stopped.

I have no love for cigarettes, and don't smoke, myself.  I'm all for ending smoking.  I'm just pointing out that by framing the issue in moral terms, conditioning the behavior and attitudes of the people and slowly regulating the industry out of existence, the government has been more successful in it's attempts to end smoking than it would have by an all out ban.  That is the real lesson of Prohibition.

Lumen Fidei: A Commentary by Fr. Robert Barron

I've got a couple of posts that I'm tinkering with right now, and could have an original piece put up before the end of business today.

Until then here's something from Fr. Robert Barron on the Pope's new Encyclical Lumen Fidei, on the theological virtue of faith. I've read it, am reading it again and I'll have my reflections on it, hopefully, next week.  Until then enjoy this.  Fr. Barron sees this letter on faith as an answer to the "new atheists'" claims the faith is a childish submission to irrational beliefs.

My own reflection on faith in general is that we only put our faith in things that we have a reason to.  If a boyfriend or girlfriend has always been honest and trust worthy then we can have faith in them when we take the next step and enter into marriage.  We would be a fool to entrust our hearts to someone who we knew was a liar and a cheat.  Faith comes in because, as they say in the investment game, past performance doesn't insure future results.  Humans are fallible and even the most noble is capable of infidelity under the right circumstances.  But we take the person's track record and have faith that together your virtues will only be strengthened by God's grace.

When it comes to God, I put my faith in Him, at least in part, because He has a track record.  I can see that there is still a Jewish people and still a Church.  God made promises to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and David to make their descendants as numerous as the sand of the sea shore, a kingdom that would endure.  While I believe that the promises made by God to Israel see their ultimate fulfillment in the Church, he has not forgotten his "remnant."  Through wars, exiles, occupations, and even genocides, the Jewish people endure and thrive.  Jesus promised Peter that the gates of Hell would not prevail against the Church.  And through persecutions, schisms, reformations and scandals the Church endures, and even thrives.  God doesn't promise peace and tranquility, but he does promise His abiding presence and ultimate victory.  He's got a track record I can trust, and so I put my faith in Him.

Matrimonial Chastity?

I took the feast of St. Maria Goretti as an opportunity to reflect on the current debate over the proper definition of marriage.  That may seem strange since this saint is so connected with chastity.  In truth it makes perfect sense because, contrary to popular belief, chastity and celibacy are not the same thing.  Married people are called to live chastely just as much as single people and vowed religious are.  How so?

Well, the virtue of chastity consists in the moderation and self control of our sexual appetite, and is related in general to the virtue of  temperance.  For a single person this means total abstinence from sexual relations before marriage.  For a vowed religious and most Catholic priests it means a life long commitment to the celibate life.  For a married person it means fidelity to his or her spouse.  But it also means more than that.  Here are a few qualities of matrimonial chastity that come to mind.

1. Married chastity involves a mutual respect between partners.  Bl. John Paul II, whose writings on marriage and sexuality alone should garner him the title of Doctor of the Church, stressed that marriage was not a license to "do what ever you want."  The needs and dispositions of both partners needs to be taken into account when engaging in the conjugal act.  For instance one should never force himself upon the other (an obvious point, I would think).  JPII caused a stir when he suggested that there was such a thing a marital rape (some accused him of being puritanical).   He also scandalized some when, as a bishop, he wrote that spouses need to be attentive to the sexual satisfaction of their partners lest the "slighted" partner begin to view sex as a wearisome burden (what's a bishop doing writing of such things, how indecent, some said). A couple that approaches sex in a spirit of mutual respect and regard for the needs of the other are living the ideal of loving self control the virtue of chastity calls for.

2. Married chastity is open to the transmission of new life.  Ah yes, the contraception issue.  If Social Security is the third rail of American politics, this is surly 1,500 volts of shock no priest wants to play hopscotch around in the pulpit or in the confessional.  For most married Catholics this is something they see as a settled matter, and do not want to discuss it.  In my recent experiences with preparing couples for the sacrament I sense a tolerant politeness when I talk about it, and in some cases I do pick up a genuine curiosity about Natural Family Planning (NFP), but I'm under no illusions about the odds of them taking this practice up in their married life.  I've written on this topic in other places, but I will just say that those who practice NFP faithfully school themselves in the very self control that fosters mutual respect and regard for the needs of the other.  Sex is less likely to be engaged in for purely selfish motives, but (hopefully) in a spirit of gratitude and appreciation for the other since a time of abstinence is required each month for those who do not want to have children at a given moment, or else with the joyful purpose of being co-creators with God in the generation of a new life.  Either way the virtue of married chastity involves the perfecting the ideal that sex is an act of mutual self giving open to the transmission of new life. 

3. Married chastity involves modesty and custody of the eyes.  Modesty and custody of the eyes are somewhat "old timey" terms that we don't hear much about today.  Modesty usually involves how we dress and speak.  Dressing provocatively or telling "off color" jokes would go against the virtue of modesty.  Custody of the eyes involves having self control over how we see people.  To see a person we might find attractive and acknowledging it to ourselves is not sinful.  On the other hand leering and allowing lustful thoughts to develop into fantasies that linger in our minds would be going against what Jesus talked about when he said that it is possible to commit adultery in our hearts.

I am sometime countered by the line that immodesty is in the eye of the beholder, so if someone finds a woman's neckline too revealing it's his problem not hers  (And I don't mean to pick on women, men can certainly dress immodestly as well).  First off, this takes for granted the virtue of the owner of the neckline in question.  Secondly, while having custody of the eyes means that we have learned to look upon others as complete human beings and not sex objects, if our hypothetical neckline was as virtuous as we assume then she would have patience with the scruples of those weaker than herself, as St. Paul would put it, and not dress in a way that could be misconstrued or lead others into sin.  Obviously we need to be sensible about things; one doesn't go to the beach in a tuxedo or a floor length gown.  At the same time one shouldn't attend Mass in speedos or a mini skirt.  I would say that these principles apply to both single and married alike.

But on a deeper level I would say that these dual ideas of modesty and custody of the eyes needs to apply as well to the rampant spread of pornography and "gentleman's clubs" in our society.  There are wives content to allow their husbands to indulge in these "diversions" under the false assumption that these aren't sins against married life.  But in both cases these involve a debasement and objectifying of other people for the sexual gratification of the "customer," and in the case of the married person, it is seeking that gratification in isolation, apart from the fruitful and nurturing relationship of husband and wife.

Pornography has been especially harmful to marriages, with some studies suggesting that upwards of 50% of divorces are caused by porn addiction.  In these voyeuristic and vicarious experiences we can fool ourselves into thinking that the performers are somehow "not real."  But they are very real people caught in a web us sin, and we participate in that sin by watching a paying for it.

I don't claim these three points to be exhaustive, but they are what come to my mind right away when I think of the virtue of chastity within the context of marriage.

Maria Goretti, Chastity and Christian Marriage

A photo believed to be of St. Maria Goretti

Brothers and sisters: "Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food" -- and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! But he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Shun immorality. Every other sin which a man commits is outside the body; but the immoral man sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.  1 Cor. 6:13c-15a, 17-20

I guess I don't so much want to reflect on the life of today's Saint, Maria Goretti, as the reading from St. Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians that is suggested for her Mass.  The virtue of Chastity, which Maria died for,  is central to the living of the Christian life.  Sadly the broader culture doesn't see it that way, and current attitudes toward marriage that are prevalent among many is proof of that.

Needless to say, the definition of marriage has been a hotly debated topic over the past several years, and is again at the forefront of people's attention with the recent Supreme Court decision striking down the Defense of Marriage Act.  Many do not understand why the Catholic Church is uncompromising in Her opposition to the redefinition of marriage to include same sex couples.  Is the Church bigoted against gays?  Are we holding to some Victorian notion of sexual morality that society has long ago abandoned?  The answer lies in our understanding of marriage, not born of a lack of charity or of social convention but of Divine Revelation, and our notion of Christian Chastity in general, born of the same.

We are stubborn on this issue, because from the beginning God created them male and female, as Scripture tells us.  The first couple were given to each other by God to be partners and companions, true, but also to "be fruitful and multiply."  We don't know from Genesis how long Adam and Eve enjoyed the Original Blessing before the Fall, but sex and family would have been a part of that blessing, whether they partook of them or not.  They were joined in a marriage, the primordial Sacrament, as Bl. John Paul put it, central to God's plan for humanity.  Because of the intrinsic link in our understanding between sex and child rearing, love and responsibility, Christian marriage is never simply about romantic love.  Romance may be the spark that lights the fire, but if the flames of love are to be enduring they need to be rooted in something deeper than sexual attraction or even the need for companionship.

As Paul reminds us above, sex is not to be seen as a good in and of itself.  Any attachment to bodily pleasure, be it eating, drinking or whatever pleasure a person finds comfort in, should be ordered toward a greater good or we will become self centered, closed off from the blessings God wants to give to us.  The body has value.  We are not bodies with souls, but neither are we a soul who lugs around an animated corps.  Christ redeemed the whole human person, and the body is meant as the visible expression of the invisible reality "underneath" it.  It is how we love, serve and live out our vocation as Christians.  In baptism we are joined to Christ, body and soul, and this union is renewed and made more explicit in the reception of the Eucharist.  When we sin we bring Christ with us to a place he doesn't want to go.  He doesn't want to accompany us in sexual sin because it is a misusing of the body and the gift of sexuality that is is ordered to a particular good; the good of the couple, yes, but also family life, which prevents sex from becoming self centered and egotistical.

When gays feel that the Church, and others who stand against same sex marriage are singling them out for scrutiny unjustly, they have a point.  The wider Western Culture has long a go separated sex from family life, and reduced marriage to a romantic relationship or maybe, on a deeper level, sees it as a profound companionship that involves certain legal benefits.  Children and family can be, and usually are part of this arrangement, but is far from essential.  All that matters is the couple themselves independent of any reference to family and society at large.  If marriage is thus defined, than why not include couples of the same gender among those who can join in wedlock?

Yes, I am stubborn.  Whatever you might want to call such a union, it is not a marriage as I understand it as a disciple of Christ, and it doesn't make a bit of difference if the couple is gay or straight.  This is so not because "I" believe it, but because I have thrown my lot in with Christ who teaches me through Scripture and Tradition, which includes in this case a teaching reiterated by Pope Francis in his latest encyclical.  These are my guides; not opinion polls or changing social attitudes.  I judge social mores by the Gospel, not the other way around.

I guess I feel compelled to conclude by saying that Christ holds His disciples to a high standard, not easy to follow.  Sometimes people fail, and then we trust in God's mercy and His grace that makes conversion possible.  Jesus made it clear that the Kingdom is not for the unchaste, but also showed great compassion for those who fell into sexual sin.  Jesus will always take us back.  But in this issue we are not simply talking about sin and weakness but in the institutionalizing of a way which is simply contrary to the Gospel message.  My only fear is that by going down this path, it is not Christ who will withdraw his love and compassion from us, but we who are closing ourselves off from it. 

Santo Subito! John Paul II and John XXIII to be Canonized

Along with the release of the first encyclical of Pope Francis' pontificate this morning, it was announced that Blesseds John XXIII and John Paul II will be canonized, probably sometime before the new year.  I have only gotten the my hands on the new letter, entitled  Lumen Fidei (The Light of Faith), but I'll get going on reading it and giving you my thoughts soon.    But for now, I just want to express joy at this announcement, and reflect on the early reports in the secular press.

As one might expect, John Paul Paul II is getting most of the headlines.  His was the more recent and longer pontificate.  As for "Good" Pope John, much is being made of the fact that Pope Francis dispensed with the usual requirement for a second miracle before the canonization can proceed.  First, the Church makes the rules, and the pope can dispense with these requirements as he sees fit, (like when Pope Benedict dispensed with the five year waiting period to begin the process almost immediately after JPII's death).  This time around it was done on the recommendation of the cardinals and bishops handling the case.  Before the 1600's there was no canonization process, the pope simply declared someone a saint based on his or her reputation, and sometimes the acclamation of the people from where the candidate was from.  And dispensing from this requirement is not unheard of.  St. Thomas More was canonized without any miracles attributed to his intercession; his martyrdom was seen as sufficient proof of heroic virtue. 

As for John Paul "the Great,"  most of the secular stories I read couldn't finish without mentioning the child sex abuse scandals that erupted in the final years of his pontificate, as if these should disqualify him from being raised to the altar.  A few observations:

1.  In the spirit of Pope Leo XIII, we should neither hide the truth nor lie about the past.  It is a historical fact that the scandals blew up during John Paul's pontificate.  Questions must be asked concerning how the Church, and the pope himself, handled the situation.  But we are declaring a person a saint, not divine.  All saints had faults, short comings, blind spots and failures.  All you need to do to figure this out is to read Gospels and observe the behavior of the Twelve.   The question is not if John Paul II was perfect, but was he faithful to his call to a heroic degree until he drew his last breath.

2.  The scandals themselves predate JPII's pontificate, with some cases reaching back to the 1940's and '50's.   This would mean that John XXIII should be receiving the same scrutiny, especially since the majority of cases are from roughly the '50's to the '70's (Pope John served from 1958 until 1963).

3.  Some see the dual canonization as a way of balancing out these concerns over John Paul's suitability, by placating both "progressives," who tend to idealize Pope John  and "conservatives," who are devoted to John Paul.  One article I read tried to paint it that Pope Francis is more in line with those progressives who see Vatican II as a clear break from the past as opposed to Pope Emeritus Benedict who had tried to stress the continuity of the Council with the development of the faith through the centuries; thus, again, pushing the placate scenario. In a word, rubbish.  You could make just as strong an argument that canonizing both men together is a way of reinforcing this notion of continuity (which I espouse):  the pope who called the council canonized with the pope who spent almost 30 years interpreting the reforms after their initial implementation by Pope Paul VI.

I have to get back to the work of the parish, at this point.  But I'll certainly have more to say of the great event, and Pope Francis' first encyclical.

"Evangelical Catholicism" - George Wiegel // Book Review

Evangelical Catholicism: Deep Reform in the 21st-Century Catholic Church
George Weigel, Basic Books, 2013

Every so often I read something, be it a book or an article, and I'll say to myself, "Self, this person is saying what I've been feeling but haven't been able put into words."  George Weigel's new book, Evangelical Catholicism, is one such book.  In it Weigel tries to cut through the politicized and polarized ways many Catholics, in the United States anyway, have tended to view things religious over the last fifty years in order to set in motion the "deep reform" of twenty-first century Catholicism along evangelical lines.

Before going on some definition of terms is needed.  Catholics and Main Line Protestants usually hear the word "evangelical" and think Christian fundamentalist, with all that that implies.  But what we mean by evangelical is that the central mission of the Church is the spreading of the Gospel message, and leading more people into a personal encounter, and ultimately friendship with the Lord Jesus Christ.  The Church's mission is not one of self maintenance where the criteria of success is measured purely on how the latest parish capital campaign is going, or if it reached it's quota on the bishop's annual appeal.  It's not that these things are unimportant, but rather they are good only in so far as they assist the overall mission of the Church which is the spreading of the Gospel.  When things that are ancillary become central, or when the Church gets caught up in theological debates over Her identity, as we will see, then She becomes self referential and irrelevant to the outside world: the very antithesis of what Evangelical Catholicism means. 

In recent decades we have seen the Church break into two camps.  On one hand you have progressive Catholics, who tend to be somewhat low church when it comes to liturgy, strong in promoting the social justice teachings of the Church while de-emphasizing the teachings on abortion and sexual morality.   They are often for a married clergy and women priests, and may be in favor of gay marriage.  On the other side you have traditionalist, who, in some cases want to go back to the pre-Vatican II liturgy, and place a greater stress on personal morality, especially on sexual matters, as opposed to the Church's social doctrine.  They're for a strict adherence to liturgical regulations and the excommunication of political office holders who publicly descent from Church teachings, especially on abortion.  While I have no doubt from reading this book, and some of Weigel's other writings, that his sympathies are more with the traditionalist side, he takes a pox on both your houses approach to this divide.  For him both sides exist within a Counter Reformation Catholic framework that sees the Church as She is and either wants to go back to a more stringent observance of "the rules," or else wants to loosen up the reins.  But neither model of Church, if you will, is sufficient to confront an ambient culture that is increasingly hostile to Catholic values.  

The proper response to this hostile culture is a Catholicism that understands that many, including those who are baptized members of the Church, do not share the traditional Catholic world view.   The answer is not to abandon traditional teachings, but to make an appeal from the Gospels as opposed to from ecclesiastical authority.  Contemporary Western culture has a mistrust of institutions and authority.  To appeal to the Code of Canon Law or a papal pronouncement to defend a position is useless in an argument with someone who doesn't recognize their validity to begin with.  But to appeal to the Gospel, Weigel argues, is to change the conversation from one of authority to one of challenge that will prompt a response.  It may be a thoughtful rejoinder or it may be hostile, but it will not be indifferent, and hopefully the conversation will continue.

Weigel does not see this process of evangelical reform as something that is just beginning now.  He traces its roots to the pontificate of Leo XIII (1878-1903) and sees it progressing through the popes of the twentieth century and leading to Vatican II, with Blessed John Paul II and Benedict XVI giving it its philosophical and theological character.  The book was published just as Pope Benedict was stepping down, but in recent interviews he has said that he sees Pope Francis as following right in line with this evangelical movement.

This really scratches the surface of what the book talks about, so I might revisit it at a later time. I guess what I identified with was this idea that we have come to the end of one historical phase of Catholicism and are now entering into another.  Counter Reformation Catholicism was vibrant and powerful; it held the Church together during a difficult period of Her history, and did oversee the evangelization of large parts of the non-European world.  But now we face new challenges that demands a new new expression of the faith.  Not that the content of the Catholic Faith changes, but how it is communicated and expressed needs to evolve and how it's lived deepened.  We must not be content to simply maintain institutions, but have the courage to alter them, or even abandon them for new models if they are no longer effective in serving the Church's central mission of evangelization. This is a frightening proposal, but one that must be taken seriously if the Church is going to be true to Herself, and the Divine Spouse that She serves.