Catholicism's Protestant Future

The #protfuture conversation continues. First Things editor R.R. Reno has a reflection on it, as a Catholic and also one of the sponsors of the #protfuture event. He notes that while intra-Protestant discussions of the future of Protestantism inevitable involve some discussion of Catholicism, he doesn’t see intra-Catholic discussion about the future of Catholicism involving discussion of Protestantism.

To my dismay and sadness, a lot of Protestants on the internet see me as anti-Protestant, so I may surprise them by saying that if Reno is right, then I would view that as a disaster. The Spirit moves outside the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church, and we should and indeed must learn from our brothers and sisters in Christ who do not profess the Catholic faith. During the #protfuture event, one of the panelists said–in essence, I’m paraphrasing–that Protestants shouldn’t really bother with unity with the Catholic Church, because the Church is so big, “they don’t need us”, and they already have enough on their plate with their own Catholic issues to bother with us. I definitely think that’s a sense we see in a lot of the day-to-day life of the Church–but I would view that as a sin, the sin of self-regard and self-preoccupation. And so let me clearly affirm, discussions on the future of Catholicism must include discussion of Protestantism. (And not just to reject it out of hand, of course.)