About George Weigel 515 Articles
George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of Washington's Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he holds the William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies. He is the author of over twenty books, including Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II (1999), The End and the Beginning: Pope John Paul II—The Victory of Freedom, the Last Years, the Legacy (2010), and The Irony of Modern Catholic History: How the Church Rediscovered Itself and Challenged the Modern World to Reform. His most recent books are The Next Pope: The Office of Peter and a Church in Mission (2020), Not Forgotten: Elegies for, and Reminiscences of, a Diverse Cast of Characters, Most of Them Admirable (Ignatius, 2021), and To Sanctify the World: The Vital Legacy of Vatican II (Basic Books, 2022).

5 Comments

  1. No surprise in McElroy’s position here. Both he, Chocago’s Cupich, and Newark’s Tobin are all mealy-mouthpieces for a feel-good, condescending liberal Church. The shepherds of the Latin American Church historically were pawns of the rich and powerful until the revolutions of the 20th century. And too many have been sex abusers or enablers for the ot to be taken seriously.

    • As a Brazilian, I point out: your observation is correct. The hierarchy here has always been in accord with elites. And when they ceased to be, it was to adopt Liberation Theology, that big failure of the 60´s and 70´s, when the Church decided to preferentially choose the poor and the poor decided to preferentially choose the pentecostal sects.
      50 years on, there is one fact clear to all, leftist and conservative: the state of the Church in Brazil is one of devastation. The Church loses 5% of its members per year, and of the remaining the majority doesn´t practice the faith, limiting themselves to one or other procession throughout the year. Really, it is pagan, very pagan. People are devoted not to Mary, Mother of Jesus, but to one specific image, that is in one specific chapel. They even differentiate between the images, as if Mary wasn´t the same. Ours, today, is not a Catholic country. Not anymore. And this is the country the Vatican claims to be the biggest Catholic country in the world.
      To make things worse, the abuses are so outrageous that some practicing catholics refuse to attend services (this is my case, since an Offertory had a reggae music as background). I asked myself what would follow: an incensory with marijuana, perhaps?

      • WOW. Your historical analysis of the decline of the Catholic Church, especially regards the Church leaders, in South America – at least Brazil – is indeed very interesting and sad. Thank You.

        • You are welcome, brother Phil. By the time, we still have personal prayer. One can always pray the rosary, the hours… and in big cities, there are always some good parishes, where real catholic priests still preach Jesus the King. Opus Dei has been making a remarkable service in the capitals, even when they are not liked by the bishops. I live in a little city with 4 parishes, none of them remotely orthodox. I am building a house in another city 60 miles away from here, where there are more faithful, even a new cistercian monastery. As God said to Elijah, He always has his 7000 that didn´t bow down to baal. Let us pray for each other. God bless.

  2. Bishops in Latin America, with its woeful lack of priests, always depended on the Catholic culture to carry on the faith. Too bad they did not find ways to help the people find the living Christ. I spent some time in Guatemala, which is also on its way to becoming a Protestant country. An observation: the emotional, hands-on vitality of Protestant worship compared to most Catholic Masses.

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