Fran,I’ve been reading your thoughts in True Confessions to great profit. One of the book’s underlying themes is that we’ve moved into a time when the energies that enliven the Church are outside the normal parish and diocesan structures. It will be that way for the next twenty years at least, as those structures weaken. We’re already suffering from a lack of available leaders, clergy-wise, in their 60s and 70s. The same is true for men in their 50s. More alarmingly, the total numbers of priests in their 30s and 40s is dramatically small—and among them, many of those who have a natural capacity for leadership are polluted by the corrosive politics and culture of the digital age. Some of them will be capable leaders in a sectarian sort of way, but not really Catholic or catholic. …

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