The Politics of Spirituality: A Study of a Renewal Process in an English Diocese - Hardcover

There are many sections of this book that readers will enjoy ... I admire and thank the authors for the care and detailed manner in which they have analysed a renewal process in my diocese. The issues treated in the book are crucial to the Catholic Church in Britain today ... I am happy to recommend this book to all who are concerned with the sociology of spiritual renewal in Britain and with the challenges all Christians are facing in modern society. (The Tablet)

This book provides the first in-depth case study of 'Renew' - a pastoral programme of religious revitalization. The programme originated in the United States in 1976 and has been widely adopted throughout the Roman Catholic world. Initiated from the top down in a hierarchically-structured church, it can be seen as an example of clerical attempts to stimulate and control lay spirituality in an organizationally controlled manner (as opposed to grass-roots movements, such as those associated with liberation theology).

The authors look at the history of religious organizations in the Roman Catholic Church and the affects of modernity on religious practice, and the decline in the latter which prompted the diocese to adopt 'Renew'. Their findings show that the effects of 'Renew' were limited and short-lived, an inevitable consequence of the ambiguous and often contradictory aims. In analysing these findings they suggest some ways in which the church might reform itself - by decentralization and a reform of the papacy, for example - to meet the challenges of the modern age.