by Stephen Bullivant, Oxford University Press, 2019, 309 pp
Stephen Bullivant is Professor of Theology and the Sociology of Religion, and Director of the Benedict XVI Centre for Religion and Society. He holds doctorates in Theology (Oxford, 2009) and Sociology (Warwick, 2019). He has written several books on the Catholic faith, the loss of faith, and atheism.
The book is essentially a dispassionate, intensely scholarly examination of the question whether the unprecedented “mass exodus” of Catholics from the Church since the 1960s is a direct consequence, as many believe, of the reforms inaugurated by Vatican Council II (1962-’65).
Bullivant begins his investigation by looking at one of the great aims of the Council: to stir the lay faithful of the Church from passivity and insularity and to waken in them their baptismal call to holiness and apostolate. Instead, the Council appears to have succeeded only in having the faithful disaffiliate as never before in Church history.
Cardinal Pell: Vatican financial reform making ‘massive’ progress
Australian Cardinal George Pell is pictured in a screen grab addressing a Zoom webinar on transparency in the Catholic Church Jan. 14, 2020. Cardinal Pell said recent measures to centralize the church’s checks and balances represent “massive progress” in Pope Francis’ financial reform efforts. (CNS screen grab/Zoom)
By Junno Arocho Esteves • Catholic News Service • Posted January 20, 2021
ROME (CNS) While questions remain about dubious financial dealings in the past and about future uncertainties due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Vatican’s steady move toward financial transparency is on the right track, said Cardinal George Pell, former prefect of the Vatican Secretariat for the Economy.
ROME (CNS) While questions remain about dubious financial dealings in the past and about future uncertainties due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Vatican s steady move toward financial transparency is on the right track, said Cardinal George Pell, former prefect of the Vatican Secretariat for the Economy.
books and culture
Midtown Haven for a Storm-Tossed City Even in a pandemic, churches like St. Agnes remain vital to life in New York.
Covid-19
The Social Order
If asked what I love best in New York City, it would not be the city’s museums or its music halls, wonderful as these are, but its splendid churches: the neo-Gothic glory of the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer on Lexington and East 66th Street; the somber grandeur of the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola on 84th Street and Park Avenue; the breathtaking beauty of the Church of St. Jean Baptiste on Lexington Avenue and East 76th Street. All these testify to the vitality of the Catholic faith in New York over the centuries. Yet the church in which I rejoice most is the Church of St. Agnes, on East 43rd Street, next to Grand Central the quintessential city church, to which I have gone over the years not only to attend Mass and plunder the bookstore but to baptize my children and give thanks for my blessings.