George Weigel on the Path Forward for Catholicism

In a really interesting article today on the "micro-cultures" of papal conclaves over the past century, George Weigel appends this coda, which pretty much sums up where we're at as Catholics ca. 2013:

The fundamental direction of 21st-century Catholicism seems set: Whether the venue is Africa, Asia, Latin America, or the North Atlantic world, the Catholicism with a future is a robustly evangelical, dynamically orthodox Catholicism that invites the world into friendship with the Lord Jesus Christ, that defends the dignity of every human life and the “first freedom” of religious liberty for all, and that models a more humane way of life amidst the chill winds of postmodern nihilism and skepticism. The question that will begin to be answered when the white smoke goes up is whether that process of deep Catholic reform, in the service of profound conversion and renewed evangelical energy, will be accelerated by the new pope.

Weigel's new book Evangelical Catholicism is a must read.