Insights on Catholicism from The New Yorker

As many of you already know, Peter J. Boyer has written a terrific article in the May 16, 2005 issue of The New Yorker Magazine entitled "A Hard Faith: How the New Pope and His Predecessor Redefined Vatican II." I wasn't sure what to expect from the article while Boyer was still writing it and called me to ask a number of questions about the significance of John Paul II's pontificate on the eve of his death. (When a writer for one of New York's most liberal secular magazines calls to ask your opinion of the pontificate of a Pope whom, you realize, you will end up making look slightly left-of-center, naturally you're suspicious.) Boyer conceded the point by acknowledging that I probably had my doubts about his interview, but he assuring me several times that he thought I would be pleasantly surprised. For one thing, he gave me a list of those on the side of the angels that he had interviewed and spent time with, including Archbishop Chaput of Denver, Fr. Benedict Groeschel of New York, and many, many others.

Peter Boyer has clearly done his homework--and I mean a thorough job of it. Catholic readers pleased with the election of Pope Benedict XVI will be happy to find a treatment of Catholicism that takes its Faith seriously as something challenging, substantial and irreducibly real. By contrast, Boyer's reporting on his interviews with the dissident gallery--Richard McBrien, Charlie Curran, etc.--reveals them for the bitter, lackluster, sputtering media poodles that they are. They realize that history has passed them by, they have no new ideas left to pull out of their tattered hats, and Boyer clearly smells their gloom. The composite picture that emerges is really worth examining, if you have the time.

On a personal note, I gathered from my interview with him that Boyer is a Christian, and I asked him about his religious background. He didn't divulge his denominatinal background directly, but he did allow that he and his family currently find their home in a good Episcopalian parish.

This article is now available on the internet (thanks a tip from Sam Schmitt, who notes that it appears on the "Call to Action - Western Washington" website, and wonders whether they are finally seeing the light): "A Hard Faith: How the New Pope and His Predecessor Redefined Vatican II." It's well worth reading in full. Here is the closing paragraph from my copy:

If the introduction of Holy Communion into the political arena in 2004 was, for many American Catholics, a divisive and regrettable turn, it was no less regrettable for Chaput according to Chaput who criticized the press for a shallow understanding of the Eucharist and its centrality to the Catholic faith. But Chaput, like Razinger, also believed that such controversy might ultimately prove salutary. "Whenever the Church is criticized, she understands herself better and is purified." And when she's purified, then she better serves the Lord. We're at a time for the Church in our country when some Catholics too many are discovering that they've gradually become non Catholics who happen to go to Mass. That's sad and difficult, and a judgment on a generation of Catholic leadership. But it may be exactly the moment of truth the Church needs."

Read this article. Ultimately you'll find it a bracing dose of reality.