If there's anything Catholics in the United States should have learned over the past two decades, it's that order—in the world, the republic, and the Church—is a fragile thing. And by “order,” I don't mean the same old same old. Rather, I mean the dynamic development of world politics, our national life, and the Church within stable reference points that guide us into the future.
Many of those reference points seem to have come unstuck, and that's why we're experiencing an unusual amount of air turbulence these days. Or so I argue in The Fragility of Order: Catholic Reflections on Turbulent Times, which has just been published by Ignatius Press. The book collects thirteen essays that I've written in recent years on world history and politics, American history and politics, and the post–Vatican II Church. The set-up is a new essay on the way things seem in 2018, contrasted with the way they looked a quarter-century ago, with the Cold War won and the Church beginning to experience the renewal John Paul II defined and promoted in his authoritative interpretation of Vatican II.
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