“This new generation seems ideally positioned to address the lamentable tendency in American Catholic life to drive a wedge between the church’s pro-life message and its peace-and-justice commitments. More generally, they can help us find the sane middle between two extremes: What George Weigel correctly calls ‘Catholicism lite,’ meaning a form of the faith sold out to secularism; and what I’ve termed ‘Taliban Catholicism,’ meaning an angry expression of Catholicism that knows only how to excoriate and condemn. Both are real dangers, and the next generation seems well-equipped to steer a middle course, embracing a robust sense of Catholic identity without carrying a chip on their shoulder.

That’s assuming, however, that the best and brightest of today’s young Catholics aren’t prematurely sucked into the older generation’s debates — either by liberals who fear and resent them, or by conservatives eager to enroll them as foot soldiers in their private crusades.”