The Coup at Catholic University

The Coup at Catholic University opens on an irenic note. Priest-author Peter M. Mitchell acknowledges that older Catholics in the United States have been shaped by experiences about which his generation—Mitchell was ordained in 1999—is almost entirely ignorant. Generational divisions in today’s church, he suggests, would be more readily bridged if his own cohort knew more about the world in which their elders came of age. “We are too young to remember the supposedly good old days before the council. The fact that those who do remember them personally often respond so emotionally and negatively when those days are recalled should give my generation pause.” All he asks in return—and this seems eminently reasonable—is that older Catholics “will at least respect that my generation’s experiences and insights are no less valid than theirs.”