"Everyone, even the Holy Father, needs an editor," John L. Allen, Jr. began Monday night in the echoing Mundelein Auditorium, referring to the Pope Benedict XVI speech at the University of Regensburg in Germany that has stirred controversy in the Catholic Church and the global community.
Allen, a writer for National Catholic Reporter and CNN senior correspondent to the Vatican, was the first of several lecturers in the Chapel Lecture Series at Loyola University for the 2006-07 academic year.
The speech was entitled "The Upside Down Church in the 21st Century" and described the Church's future issues and the community of believers.
The author of "The Rise of Benedict XVI" and "All the Pope's Men: The Inside Story of How the Vatican Really Thinks" discussed the upset behind the pope's Sept. 12, 2006 speech and the current issues facing the global Catholic Church today.
"Read the whole speech and it is clear he did not mean to offend Muslims. His message was actually the relationship between faith and reason. He states that reason and faith need one another," Allen said. Allen emphasized the relationship between faith and reason as his thesis by evaluating the pope's choice to compare Christianity and Islam.
The author states in his "All Things Catholic" exclusive on Sept. 15 in National Catholic Reporter that the present pope is not a "PC pope. Instead, he simply does not allow his thinking to be channeled by the taboos and fashions of ordinary public discourse."
Allen addressed the issue that unfortunately any public statement about Islam can, and often is, misunderstood by the public because it is "suggesting that it's irrational and prone to violence," no matter the context.
The author's secondary focus was to address this new church of the 21st century that faces issues of gay marriage and stem cell research.
This new Church is one that acknowledges Latin America as home to over half of the Catholic population in the world. Mexico and Brazil account for the top number of practicing Catholics in the world. By 2025, Catholics will make up only 20 percent of the Caucasian community.
As a Catholic community of 1.1 million members worldwide, the "politics of identity" are emerging to a "community in diversity."
During this period of change, Allen said, "There is a crying need for imaginative, creative leadership." He believes that the Catholics of today must learn to work together in a global community of believers.
"Either we learn a new way to talk to each other or we do not," Allen said.
He explained that his hope at the end of his lecture is that all Catholics can be leaders for the future of the Church-not just in the city of Chicago, but in the world.
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