Church Cleaning
by S. M. Hutchens
As I write, I have just read one of those cleverly written articles that, without overtly condemning a phenomenon, uses polite contempt by word choice to flatter its readers and suggest how intelligent people like them ought to think about it. No, it was not the New York Times, which specializes in the technique, but a Catholic publication describing something Catholic.
The story was about mostly younger priests whose bishop has been permitting them to return to a more traditional form of Catholicism than they have been raised in, and who by doing so are scandalizing their post-Vatican II fellow Catholics with their Latin-Mass strangeness, doctrinariness, and lack of inclusivist sensibility. This has in some places resulted in a kind of house-cleaning in which liberalized Catholics are fleeing to Protestant churches that are more positive, accepting, and loving (the reader will understand)—like what they have become used to in modernized Catholicism.
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
S. M. Hutchens is a Touchstone senior editor.
• Not a subscriber or wish to renew your subscription? Subscribe to Touchstone today for full online access. Over 30 years of publishing!
personal subscriptions
Purchase Print &
Online Subscription
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives including pdf downloads for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
gift subscriptions
GIVE Print &
Online Subscription
Give six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for the reduced rate of $29.95. That's only $2.50 per month!
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
kindle subscription
OR get a subscription to Touchstone to read on your Kindle for only $1.99 per month! (This option is KINDLE ONLY and does not include either print or online.)
Your subscription goes a long way to ensure that Touchstone is able to continue its mission of publishing quality Christian articles and commentary.
more from the online archives
36.4—Jul/Aug 2023
Our Political Void & the Disintegration of Truth by Michael Hanby
22.8—November/December 2009
Looking for Beauty & Justice 150 Years After Darwin’s Classic by Charles Taliaferro
32.2—March/April 2019
on Properly Rendering Things to Caesar & to God by Peter J. Leithart
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
