The Future of Catholicism in America ed. by Patricia O'Connell Killen and Mark Silk (review)

There are several reasons to note a book on a major world religion in a journal devoted to new and emergent religions. The essays contained in Killen and Silk's well-conceived volume present a church in flux, facing enormous changes. A number of the developments that occurred in the late twentieth century, and continue today, reflect the advent of a new profile of Catholicism in the United States. These include the transformation of the church into a Latino institution, a process that may make the church either more conservative or more progressive; the rise of "theocons" within the church, which weakened the authority of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops; the church's participation in the culture wars waged by the religious right in American political life; and, related to that, the Catholic-Evangelical alliance in opposition to abortion (and the consequent demise of the "ecumenical consensus" that cooperated on social justice issues).

The statistics presented in the chapter on "Who Pastors," by Katarina Schuth, might put a damper on any optimism about the future: only 37 percent of American Catholics said that being a member of the Catholic Church was either the most important part (9 percent) or among the most important parts of their lives (28 percent) (166). And social justice (helping the poor) and partaking in the sacraments (such as the Eucharist) came out about even in importance, with 68 percent and 63 percent of those surveyed listing each very important (167).

The authors generally seem to agree that the church is moving toward plurality, or a "pluriform unity," in the words of Joseph P. Chinnici. Of course, there is the wild card, Pope Francis, who seems to be leading the church into a new (yet old) direction toward conciliar teachings on collegiality and the application of Pope John XXIII's "medicine ofmercy." The Future of Catholicism in America offers a glimpse of how an institution changes, despite itself. For anyone in the field of Religions in America, including new religions studies, this is a mustread.