I enjoyed reading Peter Frankopan’s Diary for this issue, in which he admits that writing a book is a “very spiritual experience”. After his bestselling The Silk Roads, the Professor of Global History at Oxford University has now turned to an unfinished history of the environment with The Earth Transformed. With the passing of Catholic polymath Paul Johnson at the age of 94, it is refreshing to know that Catholic historians – particularly those who are also happy to identify as Catholic – still operate at the very highest level of the intellectual firmament.
As with Paul Johnson, Peter’s faith forms an essential part of who he is. I love that he likens the writing and research process to an Act of Creation. He marvels at how a “blinking cursor” can almost miraculously transform into a digital agent that “clarifies, explains and informs about the past, present or future”. But it is his humility, in trying to unravel complex issues, despite the millions of books sold and the impressive array of academic initials after his name, that lifts the soul. When things get tricky, he pops to his local church. “I’ll sit in a pew in silence for a few minutes and come out invigorated and reassured,” he says.
Another leading academic, Professor Stephen Bullivant, our Consulting Editor, has written an important article about how the United States is rapidly becoming an ex-Christian country. In our main leader, we highlight how he has coined the phrase “nonverts” to describe this depressing global trend, not the least in the US where 12.5 per cent of America’s 300 million population now identify as “ex-Catholic”.
Every Catholic ought to worry about Stephen’s latest diagnosis of spiritual ennui. As Professor of Theology and the Sociology of Religion at St Mary’s, Twickenham, he is a leading expert on “the mass exodus” of cradle Catholics from the Church. By “nonvert”, Stephen means people who once had some faith or religion to now having none. As he says, this is a disturbing development because identifying with “no longer being religious” is very different from never having been a believer in the first place. He makes the comparison between how being “a recovering alcoholic is different from being a lifelong tee-totaller”.
This is an apt analogy. When the Catholic faith flourishes in cultures and communities, as it used to in America for much of the 20th century thanks to the power of immigrant tribal communities (Irish, Italian, German and more), it is a form of spiritual intoxication. What America is now experiencing is a form of religious cold turkey, a hangover from Vatican II combined with post-pandemic attendance drops of up to 50 per cent in US parishes.
We have, alas, seemingly reached the gates of “a world simply irreligious”, as top Catholic commentator Daniel Johnson (son of Paul) quotes John Henry Newman in his excellent profile of George Weigel and his new book, To Sanctify the World. In such a world, argues Weigel, “Catholicism would cease to be an ethnic, national or cultural inheritance”. In this issue, we are lucky to have such a cast of brilliant writers critiquing the world around us, including its loss of faith, while at the same time – and this is just as important – offering hope despite the grim nonvert statistics.
To reverse this trend is why we have launched the Catholic Herald Institute, with its HQ in New York. It is devoted to renewing Catholic identity in America and defending and promoting Catholic values in the public square through education, programmes, awards, seminars, talks and events across the US and beyond.
We will also have a London affiliate. This is headed by Mark Ackermann, a highly respected figure in the US Catholic non-profit landscape who worked with Cardinal Egan in organising Pope Benedict’s visit to New York. The interim Chair is Amanda Bowman, a former board member of the Sheen Center for Thought and Culture in New York. We are in good hands.
If you would like to support the Institute or learn more about its spiritual mission, please email Mark at [email protected].
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