Retrospect on a Pontificate

There remains a great work of reform to be done in Rome: financially, theologically, and otherwise. Even more fundamentally, however, the next pontificate must understand what the Francis pontificate seems not to have grasped: Christian communities that maintain a clear understanding of their doctrinal and moral identity and boundaries can not only survive the acids of post-modernity; they have a chance to convert the post-modern world. By contrast, Christian communities whose self-identity becomes incoherent, whose boundaries become porous, and who mirror the culture rather than trying to convert it wither and die.