World Christianity by the Numbers

From Denver Catholic

By George Weigel

The annual “Status of Global Christianity” survey published by the International Bulletin of Missionary Research is a cornucopia of numbers: some are encouraging; others are discouraging; many of them are important for grasping the nature of this particular moment in Christian history.

This year’s survey works from a baseline of 1900 A.D., and makes projections out to 2050. Within that century and a half there’s some good news about the global human condition that ought to be kept in mind when remembering the bad news of the 20th century and the early 21st. For example: in 1900, 27.6 percent of adults in a world population of 1.6 billion were literate. In 2015, 81 percent of the adults in a global population of 7.3 billion are literate, and the projection is that, by 2050, 88 percent of the adults in a world of 9.5 billion people will be literate—a remarkable accomplishment.

Weigel Calls Pope Francis "A Genuine Christian Radical" Who Will "Call the People of the Church to Radical Discipleship"

The Lay Reform of Church and World

From First Things

By George Weigel

 

Two volumes recently published by Encounter Books address key issues in the New Evangelization.

The first, Marcello Pera’s Why We Must Call Ourselves Christians, is another effort by a distinguished public intellectual to call our civilization back to its foundational senses. Pera, a philosopher of science, is also an Italian legislator who served for several years as president of the Italian Senate. During his tenure as Italy’s third-ranking public official, he co-authored a book with then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Without Roots, in which Pera, the secular philosopher, and Ratzinger, the Church’s principal theologian, found a remarkable degree of agreement on the causes of Europe’s current malaise, which both men traced to a profound hostility to Christian faith and a deep skepticism about moral truth.

Father Barron’s ‘Catholicism’

From the Denver Catholic Register
By George Weigel

In the fall of 1972, a group of us, philosophy majors all, approached our dean of studies, Father Bob Evers, with a request: Under the supervision of a faculty member, could we build a two-credit senior seminar in our last college semester around Kenneth Clark’s BBC series, “Civilization,” which had been shown on American public television. Father Evers agreed, and we had a ball. “Civilization” was the perfect way to finish a serious undergraduate liberal arts education; it brought together ideas, art, architecture and history in a visually compelling synthesis of the history of western culture that respected Catholicism’s role in shaping the West.

Russian Orthodoxy and Lenin’s Tomb

By George Weigel

George Weigel

Almost 40 years ago, an aging Anglican clergyman told me a story about his first trip to Paris as a boy—perhaps in the 1920s. His grandfather had called him in, told him that he had a gift to be used in the French capital, and then gave my friend a small pocket mirror. The boy, puzzled, asked his grandfather what the mirror might be for. The following dialogue ensued:

“You are going to Paris, I understand?”

“Yes, Grandfather.”

“I suppose they’ll take you to see where they’ve buried the little monster” (meaning Napoleon, in Les Invalides).

George Weigel Responds to Catholic Academics Who Criticized John Boehner

Reactionary Liberalism and Catholic Social Doctrine 

From First Things

By George Weigel

The debate over Catholic social doctrine and U.S. social welfare policy took an unhelpful turn in May when a gaggle of academics fired a shot across the bow of House Speaker John Boehner, prior to his commencement address at the Catholic University of America. Their charge? That Boehner’s House voting record showed him to be a man who fails “to recognize (whether out of a lack of awareness or dissent) important aspects of Catholic teaching.” Why? Because he had not supported legislation that, in the professors’ view, addressed “the desperate needs of the poor.”

Speaker Boehner, a Catholic with a solid pro-life voting record, is a big boy who can defend his votes on various issues. What bothered me about the open letter to Boehner was its tone (smarmy), its assumptions about the one-to-one correspondence between the principles of Catholic social doctrine and the policy preferences of the Democratic Party, and its suggestion that anyone who challenges that linkage is in “dissent” from settled Catholic teaching.

The 2012 election seems likely to be defined by a major national debate on the welfare state, government spending, and social responsibility. If libertarian minimalism of the sort espoused by Ron Paul sits poorly with the rich and complex tradition of Catholic social doctrine, so does reactionary liberalism of the sort espoused by the anti-Boehner pedagogues. So perhaps a review of the basics is in order, to put the forthcoming argument on a more secure footing.