‘The Future Church’: Why Progressivism is Passè

Who are the Progressives and where are they going? The progressive movement in the Catholic Church refers to those who believe that the church must continue to adapt itself to the progressive trends in society. Progressives push for married priests, women priests, permission for contraception, a more ‘pro choice’ position on abortion, ‘open-ness’ to same sex unions, an end to what they claim is clerical control of the church, and other ‘modern’ causes.

While progressives in the United States, Canada and Europe still have a strong voice in certain quarters of the Church, what is their future? According to journalist John Allen it doesn’t look good.

In his book Future Church Allen lays out the demographics of the Catholic Church of the twenty first century. From 1950 to 2005 the world population swelled from 2.5 billion to 6.5 billion. During that time the Catholic Church grew at about the same rate. However, the numbers are misleading because the growth was not equal to the population growth across the world. The Catholic Church in the Southern Hemisphere grew more while the Catholic Church in the Northern Hemisphere contracted. Allen reports, “the total number of African and Asian Catholics grew enormously, to 130 million and 107 million by the year 2000.”

The Catholic Church in the global south is therefore young and growing and like any adolescent, it is learning to flex its muscles. What will this young and vibrant Catholic Church look like? Allen lays out six characteristics which I will be exploring in six articles for Catholic Online.

The first quality of the Southern Hemisphere Church is that it is morally conservative and politically liberal. Catholics in Africa, Asia and South America are shocked by homosexuality and Western style immorality, while they are in favor of a preferential option for the poor and are critical of unbridled capitalism. Allen quotes Ugandan priest Fr John Mary Waliggo who likes aspects of liberation theology but says, “Things such as homosexuality are not just seen as sins, but as hideous perversions.” He points out that these prohibitions are deeply rooted in African tribal culture, not just in the rules of Catholicism.

Allen points out that the same attitudes prevail in Asian and Latin America. According to a 2006 study 72% of Indians, 78% of South Koreans, 56% of Philipinos believe that homosexuality is ‘never justified’. Across Central and South America numbers are about the same. What percentage are opposed to abortion? Brazil: 79%, Guatamala: 85%, India: 68% and the Philippines: 97%.

However, while the Southern Catholics are conservative morally, they take a more ‘liberal’ approach to politics and economics. They are skeptical of globalization and American power. They like the United Nations and don’t like Israel. They endorse state involvement in welfare systems and tend toward pacifism and an ecologically sound agenda.

Are our Catholic brothers and sisters in the Southern Hemisphere ‘conservative’ or ‘liberal’? I think they’re just being good Catholics. Catholicism has always defended strong family values while also being justly skeptical of super powers, men of wealth and those who would dominate and exploit the poor.

How does this play out for the progressive Catholics in the United States, Canada and Europe? It is very simple: progressive Catholicism is passè. It’s already past it’s sell by date. It’s proponents are grey and going while the Church in the south is young and growing.

The positive way forward for Catholics, as always, is to listen to what the Spirit is saying to the Churches. The Spirit speaks from the past to the present and from the present to the future. The struggles of the church in the forty years since the Second Vatican Council have brought us to a new threshold. English priest, and Newman scholar, Fr. Ian Ker has said that it takes about fifty years for any general council of the church to come to it’s fruition. Furthermore, that fruition is never what the fathers of the council envisioned. The future always plays out differently. The Holy Spirit is always full of surprises.

The ‘new Springtime’ of the Church predicted by Cardinal Newman may very well be sending up its first shoots in the spiritually fertile ground of the South.

Source: Catholic Online


2 Responses to ‘The Future Church’: Why Progressivism is Passè

  1. “They’re just being good Catholics” or in the case of Israel, bad Catholics, though of course Jew-hatred has a long, unfortunate history within the Church.

  2. David Hildner says:

    Whatever one thinks about what you call “progressives” in the US Catholic Church, I’m perturbed by the seemingly triumphal attitude that they are “greying”, in other words that they are growing older and will be dying out. One website I saw even went so far as to claim that traditionalism in the US Church is gaining ground “one funeral at a time”. Cardinal Newman was quite an old man when he wrote some of his most vibrant work. I’d suggest we not misuse metaphors of “youth” and “vibrancy”.

Leave a Reply


WordPress.com Logo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Google+ photo


Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: