Also from the Allen interview – I do hope he takes this up as his next subject. There are signs everywhere, and he’s a great one to pick up on those signs. It’s Michael’s and mine orientation, totally. I spoke with a bishop after my Chicago talk, an older man whom someone who knows him described as "incredibly liberal." Which explains one the bishop’s comments to me: that people expect "conservatives" to be stiff and closed, but I didn’t give that vibe at all in my talk – that I was (this is his word) – "free." Upon hearing this, Michael was moved to wonder, "What is "conservative?" What do these people mean when they say that? Why is it even necessary to use that language and characterization?"

The number of people who are dissatisfied with the liberal/conservative divide in the Church seems to be growing. Have you seen this trend yourself, and if so, what do you make of it?

Yes. In fact, I’m kicking around the idea for a book that looks at exactly that, up-and-coming leaders in the Catholic conversation who are trying to think past the divides of history. I think it’s a much larger and widely spread phenomenon than people realize because it’s not quite visible, we don’t have a face for it yet. There’s no movement or charismatic leader to embody that instinct yet. But I think both will arrive.

It’s tragic that American Catholics spent the first part of the 20th century crawling out of the ghetto imposed on us by a hostile Protestant majority, but that now we’ve constructed our own ghettos. They’re defined not by denominational boundaries, but by ideological ones. This isn’t just distasteful on an aesthetic level, but ecclesiologically it’s deeply unsatisfactory. We’re supposed to be a community of communities—that’s what communio ecclesiology is, to which John Paul II and Benedict XVI have been so valiantly trying to call us.

Do you see any practical way the Church in America can move forward to overcome this?

My great hope for this problem of division is the emergence of the former phenomenon we talked about. You can look around and see enough people who are aware of this reality and who are dissatisfied and frustrated with it. They’re trying to grope their way forward. One of the challenges is to try to build spaces, and by spaces I mean not just physical spaces, but also virtual spaces where Catholics of different temperaments and points of view can come and engage each other, such as your own GodSpy, as well as others.

This book is a test case for dialogue in a divided Church.

At the same time, I think we’re still far too divided. Perhaps the more sociologically accurate thing to say is that we’ve got multiple, co-existing "catholicisms". When you look around at the Catholic scene, you see that you’ve got your traditionalist-liturgical Catholics, your social justice Catholics, your charismatic Catholics, your neo-conservative, intellectual Catholics, your Church reform Catholics, and others. They all speak their own language, go to their own meetings, read their own publications, think their own thoughts. If they ever pop their head up above the walls to look at somebody in another circle, it’s often not with a genuine interest in the thought of the other. It’s with what you might call a "hermeneutic of suspicion". "I’m not really sure where this person is coming from and I’m not really sure if we’re on the same team."

Just a couple notes:

Contrary to some of the commentors on this post, I’m not seeing this as a "how do we describe and define ourselves" issue. I’m seeing this from the other side, as a person engaged in ministry. I’m seeing it as a concern that some Catholics choose who to listen to or not depending on how they define the speaker/writer/priest/bishop. We’ve seen this in spades since the election of Benedict XVI – you read his homilies and, in my opinion, what you read is just solid reflection and teaching rooted in the Scriptures and 2000 years of the richness of Catholicism, as well as insights into the contemporary scene and mindset. But some people just won’t even start to listen because of how they have defined him. Some years ago, I was startled to read a rave review of one of Scott Hahn’s books in America. Sure enough, an issue or two later, a stern rebuke to the reviewer appeared in the letters section. Didn’t this reviewer know who Scott Hahn is? That he’s associated with the Franciscan University at Steubenville? That he’s on EWTN? The reviewer was open, and was intrigued and inspired by Hahn’s treatment of the Mass – it was that book. But the ideologues stepped in and decreed that this one Should Not Be LIstened to. MIchael once sent a book to a diocese for an imprimateur (it is given by the diocese in which the author resides). Someone associated with the diocese sent it back (and this was not the censor, but someone in the religious ed office  – the diocese didn’t quite get what they were supposed to be doing) –  sent it back with a sniff, "This is pre-Vatican II. We don’t think that way anymore." And believe me, this book was very much a book aware of modern parenting and family life, but you know, the author was giving hints on how to help children learn to say the rosary. Etc. Same with, say, Joan Chittister – I’ve heard that her book on suffering is quite good – but there’s certain audience (well…like me) that wouldn’t even open it because of Chittister’s stance on other issues. I’ve had bookstore owners tell me that they had no idea I had two books on saints for children published, because they don’t even bother to open up the Loyola catalogue, because they associate the house with being "liberal."

Here is the essence: It is not about papering over differences or pretending they don’t exist. It is about paying attention when someone, no matter who, is clearly attempting to focus on Christ and his relationship to us. It is still complex, for right off, we have the question of who Jesus is and what he calls us to. But when I read, say N.T. Wright or Benedict or Schoenborn, I catch a glimpse of it.