{"id":3601,"date":"2009-10-31T14:24:40","date_gmt":"2009-10-31T14:24:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/catholicism-the-next-generation.html"},"modified":"2009-10-31T14:24:40","modified_gmt":"2009-10-31T14:24:40","slug":"catholicism-the-next-generation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/catholicism-the-next-generation.html","title":{"rendered":"Catholicism: the next generation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;This new generation seems ideally positioned to address the lamentable tendency in American Catholic life to drive a wedge between the church&#8217;s pro-life message and its peace-and-justice commitments. More generally, they can help us find the sane middle between two extremes: What George Weigel correctly calls &#8216;Catholicism lite,&#8217; meaning a form of the faith sold out to secularism; and what I&#8217;ve termed &#8216;Taliban Catholicism,&#8217; meaning an angry expression of Catholicism that knows only how to excoriate and condemn. Both are real dangers, and the next generation seems well-equipped to steer a middle course, embracing a robust sense of Catholic identity without carrying a chip on their shoulder.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s assuming, however, that the best and brightest of today&#8217;s young Catholics aren&#8217;t prematurely sucked into the older generation&#8217;s debates &#8212; either by liberals who fear and resent them, or by conservatives eager to enroll them as foot soldiers in their private crusades.&#8221; <\/p>\n<div align=\"right\">&#8212; NCR&#8217;s John Allen, offering <a href=\"http:\/\/ncronline.org\/blogs\/all-things-catholic\/next-generation-catholic-leaders\">his encouraging take<\/a> on the next generation of Catholics.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div align=\"right\">H\/T to the sage God Googler <a href=\"http:\/\/googlinggod.blogspot.com\/2009\/10\/mandatory-reading-for-anyone-who-does.html\">Mike Hayes<\/a>.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;This new generation seems ideally positioned to address the lamentable tendency in American Catholic life to drive a wedge between the church&#8217;s pro-life message and its peace-and-justice commitments. More generally, they can help us find the sane middle between two extremes: What George Weigel correctly calls &#8216;Catholicism lite,&#8217; meaning a form of the faith sold&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-people-in-the-pews"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Catholicism: the next generation - The Deacon&#039;s Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/catholicism-the-next-generation.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Catholicism: the next generation - The Deacon&#039;s Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&#8220;This new generation seems ideally positioned to address the lamentable tendency in American Catholic life to drive a wedge between the church&#8217;s pro-life message and its peace-and-justice commitments. More generally, they can help us find the sane middle between two extremes: What George Weigel correctly calls &#8216;Catholicism lite,&#8217; meaning a form of the faith sold&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/catholicism-the-next-generation.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon&#039;s Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-10-31T14:24:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"jmcgee\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Catholicism: the next generation - The Deacon&#039;s Bench","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/catholicism-the-next-generation.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Catholicism: the next generation - The Deacon&#039;s Bench","og_description":"&#8220;This new generation seems ideally positioned to address the lamentable tendency in American Catholic life to drive a wedge between the church&#8217;s pro-life message and its peace-and-justice commitments. 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