Church, interrupted : havoc & hope : the tender revolt of Pope Francis
(Book)

Includes bibliographical references (pages 263-277) and index.

"Pope Francis is prepared to say "bring on the collapse", as perhaps the only way of purging a disgraced Church. "It is not impossible," Francis has said, "that I will go down in history as the one who split the Catholic Church?" However, for Catholics as a whole, the Church will, if Francis is successful, be a friendlier, more empathetic, presence in their lives. Bestselling author, Vanity Fair regular contributor, scholar and teacher John Cornwell argues that the disruptions of Pope Francis are a calculated gamble, offering hope for vast numbers Catholics who feel excluded, demoralized, scandalized. The Catholic Church, numbering 1.2 billion members, is in crisis at every level. More than a third of America's 74 million Catholics said they were contemplating departure in 2018. It is estimated that over the past twenty years the Catholic Church has been losing $2.5 billion dollars annually in revenues, legal fees, and damages due to clerical abuse cases. The decline in church attendance, marriages, and vocations to the priesthood and sisterhoods, tell a story of major decline and disillusion. Cornwell's big and controversial message is that Pope Francis is attempting to reverse the tide of disgrace and disillusionment by disrupting entrenched ways of Catholic thinking and working directly against over a thousand years of history and tradition as he does. His strategy looks like havoc; and he himself recognizes the danger of his strategy. Conservative members of the faithful, from cardinals to lay people, have attempted to thwart him, the conservative Catholic media have condemned and disparaged him. They look to his successor to reverse the "Francis Effect": but Cornwell claims that what he has set in motion is unstoppable"--,Provided by publisher.