Michele DILLON. Postsecular Catholicism: Relevance and Renewal.  New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. pp. 214. $29.95 (hardcover).  ISBN 978-0-19-069300-8.  Reviewed by Sarah Louise MacMILLEN, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA 15282.

Since the classic “secularization” thesis, presented by Weber and Berger, among others, sociologists and religious practitioners alike have grappled with religion’s place within modernity.  Michele Dillon’s Postsecular Catholicism examines and challenges Catholic responses to modern/postmodern critiques of Christianity.  Statistical evidence draws mainly from surveys from American Catholics, but the volume also briefly acknowledges the wider significance of the Church’s growing “Global South.”  This is mentioned in considering waves of migration, currents of communications media, and the effects environmental imbalances and economic injustice have on the global dimensions of the Church.  Dillon’s main prescription for the Church is a call to a “contrite Catholicism” and to define its “relevance by integrating secular experiences and expectations” in dialogue with Church teaching. 

            In response to Habermas’ sense of a “contrite” modernity’s “broken promises” religion has something to offer. However, a “contrite” religion must approach this with a sincere repentance, given its own brokenness of scandals and abuses (its sins including but not limited to: complicity in the Holocaust, sex abuse, pervasive sexism/homophobia, imperialistic tendencies).  Running parallel is a hermeneutical claim about Church teaching, eloquently stated by Dillon.  Dillon defines the Magisterium as a breathable, “living tradition” (p. 1) and a “reflexive encounter” between tradition and change (p. 166).  The author applies this hermeneutical frame with the adeptness of a systematic theologian, addressing key social and moral agenda items with the concreteness of a social scientist.   As an historic backdrop, the volume addresses the nature of the reordering of these issues in the domain of Church leadership from John Paul II, to Benedict XVI, to Francis. 

            Throughout the book, the author highlights how the “secular” and “religious” comingle—this claim is especially important to the trajectory of writings, and lived example, of Pope Francis.  From John Paul II, to Benedict XVI to Francis, there has been a shift from “be ye separate” to “God dwelling in the secular/the world” (chapter 3).  One critique: precisely what divides “sacred” versus “secular” remains a little foggy in the volume (and could be historically and sociologically problematized).  However, what should be noted is the important shift in voice Pope Francis, calling for postmodern Catholics to “dialogue with the secular.”

            One lacuna of this volume is that it lacks an authentic Christian framing of this form of “contrite” religion.  A Habermasian (secular) category inspires the author’s suggested ethical stance for Christians/Catholics.  Surely a good Christian/Catholic could find Biblical language for hospitality (including welcoming the stranger, ger toshav) and deference toward the “other” in the “secular” in the Beatitudes or a sense of emptying and sacrifice, as in kenosis (Philippians 2).  This reviewer suggests that most Catholics would not respond to the thin discourse-based (Habermasian) approach to such a profound ethical orientation of “listening” to those with whom we disagree.  Yet there are sources for it within radically rooted teaching in the Christian lexicon. 

            Nevertheless, Dillon’s thesis is compelling.  The analysis of Pope Francis’ discourse would be of particular interest to the social theory audience.  Francis writes in a voice reminiscent of early Marx, on alienation and praxis, and the continuous “dialogue between reality and ideas” (Joy of the Gospel, #231).  And then taking a phenomenological stance of “considering the person’s experience,” Francis presents a “new” approach, even beyond the personalism of John Paul II.

            The volume’s most passionate plea is in the voice of Pope Francis on sexuality, the structure of the family and the admission to Eucharist.  The famous birth control, “divorced/remarried,” and LGBT identity nexus of questions were presented in the discussion of chapters on “religious freedom” and the “Synod on the Family” (2014).  In all of these issues, Dillon importantly presents the shift (even if slowly) from “moral fundamentalisms” to “emerging discourse based on experience.”  Especially significant to the discussion concerned the final two chapters of the volume, highlighting the Church’s responses to the Synod on the Family.

            In the words from the song by Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan, “Everything is Broken.”  Dillon articulates how the Church is beginning to recognize, if slowly, that a false nostalgia for a 1950s sitcom family structure is not productive.  Instead of a Culture-Industry produced monolithic myth, the Church authorities are hopefully approaching an understanding the fact that families are imperfect, and it is out of these imperfections that people desire, and need, the healing power of the sacraments.  Overall, the final moving remarks Dillon makes in a tone akin to the position of Pope Francis.  In the conclusion, Dillon states that the Eucharist is not “a prize for the perfect” and Catholics come to the table with this sense of brokenness, for healing.   In Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love, 2016), Pope Francis stresses discernment, conscience, and lived experience in the call to responding to the “Gospel within the limitations” of being human.  The sacred and secular comingle—but this reviewer suggests that perhaps they have always lingered together within the analogical revealing of God’s presence Incarnate, and in the world.