Renewal: How a New Generation of Faithful Priests and Bishops Is Revitalizing the Catholic Church

by Anne Hendershott, Christopher White

Overview

In the wake of the clergy abuse scandal of the last decade, many media commentators predicted the “end” of the Catholic priesthood. Demands for an end to celibacy, coupled with calls for women’s ordination, dominated discussions on the effectiveness of the Catholic Church in America. Renewal argues that rather than a decline of the priesthood and a diminishing influence of the Catholic Church, we are living in a time of transformation and revitalization. The aging generation of progressives that continues to lobby Church leaders to change Catholic teachings on reproductive rights, same-sex marriage and women's ordination is being replaced by younger men and women who are attracted to the Church because of the very timelessness of its teachings.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781594037023
Publisher:	Encounter Books
Publication date:	12/03/2013
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Anne Hendershott is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio. Previously, she was a Distinguished Visiting Professor at The King’s College in New York City. She moved to The King’s College in 2008 after spending more than 15 years as a tenured full-professor of sociology at the University of San Diego. She received her PhD in Sociology at Kent State University in 1988, and was the James Madison Fellow at Princeton University in 2005. A frequent contributor to popular press outlets including Catholic World Report, the Wall Street Journal, Crisis, and others, she publishes frequently on issues of importance within the Catholic Church. She is the author of five previous books including Status Envy: The Politics of Catholic Higher Education (Transaction, 2009), The Politics of Deviance (Encounter Books, 2002), The Politics of Abortion (Encounter Books, 2006), The Reluctant Caregivers (Bergin and Garvey, 2000), and Moving for Work (University Press of America, 1994).

Christopher White is the Director of Education and Programs at the Center for Bioethics and Culture. He writes frequently on matters of public policy and social ethics, and is a regular contributor to many print and online publications, including the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, National Review Online, Catholic World Report, Human Life Review, First Things, Public Discourse, and the National Catholic Register. He was awarded a 2013-2014 Robert Novak Fellowship. He lives in New York City.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction 1

1 The Struggle for Catholic Identity 11

2 Building Better Seminaries 25

3 A Problem with Authority 41

4 Best Practices of Transformational Leaders 63

5 No Charisma without Creed 89

6 Blurring the Boundaries 109

7 The Campus Culture Wars 131

8 Forging Alliances 155

9 Priests Matter 173

10 Catholic Renewal: The Good News 189

Appendices 203

Notes 213

Index 234