In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Renewal: How a Generation of Faithful Priests and Bishops is Revitalizing the Catholic Church by Anne Hendershott, Christopher White
  • Linda Kawentel
Renewal: How a Generation of Faithful Priests and Bishops is Revitalizing the Catholic Church. By Anne Hendershott and Christopher White. Jackson, TN: Encounter Books, 2013. 248pp. $25.99.

In Renewal: How A New Generation of Faithful Priests and Bishops is Revitalizing the Catholic Church, Anne Hendershott and Christopher White assess the current state of American Catholicism with regards to the culture wars, arguing that an orthodox renewal is presently underway. This renewal consists of Catholic bishops and priests taking stances in line with official church teaching on controversial cultural issues, as well as the growth of new movements within the Church that strongly support bishops’ authority. From the beginning of the book, Hendershott and White make clear where they fall on the liberal to conservative spectrum of Catholicism, describing themselves as “members of what we believe to be the side that is faithful to the non-negotiable teachings of the church on faith and morals” (13). Faithful (or orthodox) Catholics are those who are loyal to the magisterial teaching of the pope and bishops, while liberal Catholics are described as rejecting the authority of the hierarchy, and dissent from church teaching on issues such as abortion, contraception, same-sex marriage, male-only ordination, and priestly celibacy.

A key focus of Renewal is understanding why some dioceses produce more seminarians and priestly ordinations than others. Hendershott and White argue that “the theological attitude of the bishop, along with his concern for new priestly vocations, has a significant impact on ordination rates” (23). Bishops who are faithful to church teaching and adequately counter those who challenge hierarchical authority are presented as transformational leaders. The authors highlight a number of current bishops whom they consider to fall into this category and point to a plentiful number of seminarians in these bishops’ dioceses compared to the dioceses of more liberal bishops. [End Page 77]

From a sociological standpoint, Renewal takes up an important question in seeking to understand differences in diocesan ordination rates. However, for a book that moves beyond social commentary and into the realm of sociology, the authors provide little description of the data they use to support their claims and do little data analysis. This is unfortunate given that they discuss the importance of systematically collecting and analyzing quantifiable data to assess program effectiveness (99). Even though their book is not meant for an academic audience, I would have liked to see an analysis of the data in the appendices, e.g. showing and discussing correlation coefficients. A second criticism I have pertains to the authors’ literature review. It is surprising that Hendershott and White did not discuss Rodney Stark and Roger Finke’s research on Catholic religious vocations (seen in The Churching of America, 1776–2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy (2005), Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion (2000), and a December 2000 article in the Review of Religious Research). Stark and Finke’s research looks at why some dioceses have more priestly vocations than others and discusses the relationship of diocesan culture to ordination rates. Though Hendershott and White discuss other elements of Stark and Finke’s work, it would have been beneficial for them to mention and engage this research given the similar topic.

Linda Kawentel
University of Notre Dame
...

pdf

Share