Interview with John Allen on Bergoglio's Trip to Iraq

In this episode: Analysis of Pope's Iraq trip and a retrospective on 8 years under Pope Francis - Last Week in the Church with @JohnLAllenJr. https://t.co/I3y9HZoV8R

— Crux (@Crux) March 12, 2021

Ross Douthat, "To Change the Church"

We Knew John Allen Is of the Left

Even if he was somewhat "objective" in dealing with Pope Benedict XVI at NCR.

Crux Now: Is it time for a dramatic flourish from U.S. bishops on immigration?

John Allen on the Resignation of Benedict XVI

Three years ago brought history’s greatest act of papal humility

Benedict was the first pope to renounce his powers, not in the teeth of schism, foreign armies, or power struggles, but as the result of an honest self-examination that he was no longer up to the demands of the office.

Catholic Light: Pope Benedict minds sex abuse (the letter)

Rod Dreher recently criticized the pope for not doing what is necessary, namely, removing bishops who are responsible for covering-up and other sorts of malfeasance. Commentors have lambasted the attempt to defend papal inaction behind a false "conciliarity." Is it possible for a bishop to be removed from office for malfeasance? What would be the correct canonical procedure for this? And would the Orthodox be content with the sort of ecclesiology this sort of papal power represents? Having a bishop removed from office is not the same as declaring him cut off from communion, or a pretender to the bishop's chair. Who should be able to declare a bishop unfit for office? His brother bishops? The faithful? The priests who are under his authority? All three groups, working in tandem?

John Allen, Will Ratzinger's past trump Benedict's present?
Insight Scoop: Pope Benedict XVI's Pastoral Letter to the Catholics of Ireland
If the Pope is responsible, what about the Secretary of Education?

John Allen interviews Msgr. Marini

For National Catholic Reporter, of course (via Fr. Z). Fr. Z comments on a companion piece by Mr. Allen.

Jeffery Tucker looks at John Allen's new book, The Future Church: The Elephant in the Living Room. I don't have the book, and I don't plan on purchasing it, but based on what I've read in Mr. Tucker's post and Mr. Allen's brief description of the book, I think Allen gets the long-term future wrong, even if he is extrapolating based on current trends.

The book is my attempt to describe the ten most important trends shaping the future of the Catholic Church, on a global scale. My choices are the product of almost two decades of reporting, and hundreds of hours of interviews with bishops, priests, religious women and men, and laity all over the Catholic world. They’re not styled as my personal vision for the future, but rather a reporter’s effort to capture those forces which really are most significant today, whatever I (or anyone else) might think about them.

The trends are:
A World Church
Evangelical Catholicism
Islam
The New Demographics
Expanding Lay Roles
The Biotech Revolution
Globalization
Ecology
Multipolarism
Pentecostalism

I believe that the Church, if it is to remain "effective" in the future, must rediscover what it is for the local Church to be local -- only then can there be a complete renewal of Christian spirituality. (And part of that renewal includes a better developed liturgical spirituality.)

If the elites try to hold on to their political and economic power, in the face of peak oil, resource depletion, and the rest, I believe this will be accompanied by greater attacks on the Church, so that the Church must start operating more like revolutionary cells, than a mainstream social institution.