Church, Interrupted: Havoc & Hope: The Tender Revolt of Pope Francis

"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"--
Church, Interrupted: Havoc & Hope: The Tender Revolt of Pope Francis is a revealing portrait of Pope Francis's hopeful yet controversial efforts to recreate the Catholic Church to become, once again, a welcoming place of empathy, love, and inclusiveness.Bestselling author, Vanity Fair contributor, and papal biographer John Cornwell tells the gripping insider story of Pope Francis's bid to bring renewal and hope to a crisis-plagued Church and the world at large.With unique insights and original reporting, Cornwell reveals how Francis has persistently provoked and disrupted his stubbornly unchanging Church, purging clerical corruption and reforming entrenched institutions, while calling for action against global poverty, climate change, and racism.Cornwell argues that despite fierce opposition from traditionalist clergy and right-wing media, the pope has radically widened Catholic moral priorities, calling for mercy and compassion over rigid dogmatism. Francis, according to Cornwell, has transformed the Vatican from being a top-down centralized authority to being a spiritual service for a global Church. He has welcomed the rejected, abused, and disheartened; reached out to people of other faiths and those of none; and proved a providential spiritual leader for future generations.Highly acclaimed author John Cornwell's riveting account of the hopeful&;and contentious&;efforts undertaken by Pope Francis to rebuild the Catholic Church.&; Well researched and brilliantly written, readers, scholars, and fans of John Cornwell will want to read his most controversial and compelling work yet.&; 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 sisterhood tell a story of major decline and disillusion. Cornwell showcases Pope Francis's way forward, a hopeful message that gives reinvigorated reasons to stay with the church and help be the change the new generation would like to see.&; For readers within and outside Catholicism fascinated by the future and restructuring of the church, this will be a book they want to read again and again as the church continues to change and grow.