Recently my wife and I attended a couples retreat. During the introductory meeting, the co-leader of the group, Dan Jones, remarked that, in our day and age of explosive advancement in human knowledge, “what looks like a limit is the next frontier”.
This idea makes me wonder – What’s the next frontier in implementing the reforms of the Vatican II Council? I feel like we’ve definitely bumped our heads against a pretty hard limit – as I am writing this, the second largest religious “denomination” in the United States of America are unchurched Roman Catholics (about 16 million). “Churched” Roman Catholics come in around 60 million and baptists are third at about 15 million.
This is extraordinary when you think about it. We’re talking about over 25% of baptised Catholics who, for whatever reasons, find themselves on the outside looking in. how did this happen? Why does it seem, based on the thoughts of a couple of commentators to this blog, that so many compassionate and thoughtful members of the faithful have joined the “church of the unchurched?” Seems to me there’s a limitation/frontier here that’s crying out for explorers and settlers.
Jim Philipps (3rd millennium pilgrim)
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